


Wiersa

by demonsonthemoon



Series: Winterhawk Bingo Fills [2]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Grief, Hunter!Clint Barton, I am uninspired so more tags to come later, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Nothing too graphic but there's gonna be some monster killing and other violence, Slow Burn, Violence, feel free to suggest any you think might be needed, not saying what role Bucky has because SPOILERS, vague references to past addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 46,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonsonthemoon/pseuds/demonsonthemoon
Summary: After the end of the world, there are no more demons and no more angels.But there are still humans and monsters to protect them from. And so there are hunters. Clint Barton is one of them.James Barnes? Well. A lot of people consider him more monster than human these days. He's not exactly sure where the line stands anymore.(A Supernatural AU)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Winterhawk Bingo Fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885450
Comments: 31
Kudos: 58
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo Round Two





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternative universe based on the TV show Supernatural. It references a lot of mythology from the show and some of the plot points until season 5, but diverges a lot from there on. It also contains some vague spoilers for season 6, but those parts have been strongly adapted.
> 
> I don't think you need to have watched the show to understand the story. Please tell me if I'm wrong about that so I can try and rework it.
> 
> Please let me know what you think about this 'verse, I'm very excited about it.
> 
> Also: Many thanks to Clem for encouraging my return to Supernatural and letting me hash out the details of this 'verse with her.

**War: Origin < Old German, to confuse**

_Akin to the Old English_ wiersa,  
_meaning it can always get worse._  
  
\- Karen Skolfield

*****

Six years after the start of the end of the world, Clint Barton was going to die.

He would have expected it to happen sooner, if he was honest with himself. He'd been expecting to die soon since his dad beat him so bad he temporarily lost hearing in one ear, and the Apocalypse had only exacerbated that feeling. Nonetheless, that didn't mean he was happy about the grimness of his immediate future.

Vampires really fucking sucked. Pun entirely unintended but unsurprising. Clint had a tendency to rely on stupid humor when he was nervous. The prospect of dying made him really nervous.

It didn't help that the vampires in question seemed happy to take their sweet time with him, currently preparing an IV they could hook him to in order to slowly drain him of his blood. There had been a time when vampires bit you and killed you fast, before moving on to the next prey. But resources were scarce for everyone nowadays. Courtesy of the whole world ending shtick. Which was why Clint hadn't expected this vampire nest to be so big. You usally didn't see more than two or three vampires together these days. He would have been able to handle that number easily. But this was a group of seven (or it had been, before Clint beheaded one of them), and Clint was a good hunter but not _that_ good. He was just human after all.

One of the vampires stuck a needle in Clint's arm where it was tied to an armrest. For a second, Clint worried about infections. Then he remembered that he was going to die so it didn't matter anyway.

This was all really frustrating.

He would have liked to share his thoughts with his captors, but they had gagged him securely, so he was deprived of even the small comfort of spending the last days of his life being as annoying as possible.

He hoped Kate would be okay. She would learn about this soon enough. Perks of being in love with one of the continent's strongest psychic.

Well. _Perk_ was maybe not the right word. Not in this kind of situation.

Kate would want revenge, probably. That sounded like something she might do. She would be smarter about it than he'd been, though. She wouldn't just _assume_ that there would only be three vampires. She'd check beforehand. She wouldn't get caught.

Clint hoped he'd managed to teach her more caution than he'd had for himself. He wasn't sure he truly believed it, but eh. Thinking nice thoughts couldn't make the situation worse.

He started working on slipping his bonds. Not that he thought he'd be able to go anywhere, but it was the thought that mattered. There were three vampires with their eyes on him at all times, and he would be starting to feel the blood loss soon enough. If one of those bastards got distracted though... Well. Maybe Clint could make Kate's life just that little bit easier before he went. He was sure she would appreciate the gesture.

He was pretty sure he'd found a way to slip one of his hands free that only required him dislocating two of his fingers when a loud _clang_ echoed through the room. The kind of noise that would come from someone cutting off the heavy chain that kept the door to the warehouse closed.

Clint had never been one to pray, even before he had started hunting. Of course, there were some hunters who were religious, but seeing his first demon had been a sure way to ensure that Clint wouldn't ever entertain doubts about his own atheism. And then there had been the Biblical Apocalypse. That had polarized a lot of people, some saying it was proof that God existed and was there to save them. After all, they hadn't _all_ died. A lot of people were more cynical about it and had figured that if there was a God – and the angels were always rather unclear about that – he didn't give a rat's ass about humanity anymore. Clint was firmly in that latter camp. If you asked him, the fact that the Holy War had ended with angels and demons utterly destroying one another was a good thing. No victory for either side meant that humans were now free to live their fucked-up, human lives in peace. Well. Monsters were still a problem, but at least a somewhat less metaphysical one than the end of days had been.

So. Clint wasn't the praying kind. He still mentally sent a quick word of thanks to the universe. When you were given the chance to escape from certain death, it was just polite.

“I'll go check it out,” one of the vampires said, referring to the commotion at the front of the warehouse.

It left Clint with only two guards, who were already getting distracted by the sound of more clonging metal in the distance. Time to move then.

Dislocating his fingers was _decidedly_ not one of Clint's favorite activities. But it beated being sucked dry of his blood. He bit into his gag to force himself to stay silent as the pain ripped through him. Hands free, he stayed in place for a moment longer, catching his breath. Two vampires. He could do this. He hoped that the person who had entered the warehouse had brought back up with them to deal with the other four.

His machete had been taken from him when he'd been captured, but he could still see the three syringes of dead man's blood that had been stashed in his pocket, which the vampires had carelessly left on an empty shelf.

Clint counted to three. Then he ripped out gag in his mouth and the IV in his arm.

The smell of his blood on the needle immediately attracted the vampires' attention. Their fangs came out, seemingly growing from their palate over their human teeth. The sight always creeped Clint out.

He stood up quickly, picked up the chair he'd been sat on _(ignored the pain in his hand, pain meant being alive, did not think about how long it would take for his fingers to heal, how he wouldn't be able to shoot)_ and slammed it into one of the vampires' head, sending her sprawling over the other one. It only bought him a little time, but enough to grab the syringes and put some space between him and the monsters. That had been the last of his planned actions, because now came the tricky business of getting close enough to the vampires to inject them with the blood without being torn open himself.

By then, the creatures had recovered from their surprise and were showing off their fangs one more, ready to pounce on him. Somehow, Clint doubted that they would go to the trouble of tying him up again before they killed him.

There was another series of loud noises and some shouts from further into the warehouse, then the sound of footsteps coming into their direction. Clint had to act quickly if he didn't want another vampire to join the party.

There was no convenient weapon for him to grab, so he just jumped into the fight, aiming a kick at one of the monsters' knee to send him tumbling while he dodged the other's attack. The thing with vampires was that their hungers usually distracted them enough that they got predictable in their fighting styles. Mostly, you needed to avoid their teeth. The trick was to keep your own attacks low, and preferably to get behind them.

Clint's attempt at dislocating the female vampire's shoulder didn't go as planned and she nearly punched him in the face with her elbow. He dodged her at the last second, managing to kick her in the ribs. It wasn't enough to make her stumble, but it did give Clint enough time to focus on the other vampire again, dodge his awkward lunge, grab his arm and send him sprawling once more. That one wasn't a very good fighter.

With all the noise they'd been making, Clint hadn't noticed that the footsteps from earlier were now very close. But then he looked up just as a man passed a set of shelves and came fully into view. He wasn't one a member of the nest. From what Clint could tell, he was fully human. (Although “what Clint could tell” didn't mean much considering the number of humanoid monsters around.)

The newcomer didn't even stop to assess the situation. He kept moving, calm and confident, gaze entirely focused on his target. The female vampire turned towards him, hissing and showing her teeth. Probably it was meant to be intimidating, but it didn't seem to have much effect on the stranger. Instead, he walked right up to her. The vampire lunged forward, but the man grabbed her under the jaw, actually lifting her off the ground. Then he chopped her head clean off with a machete.

Clint was fascinated. And _maybe_ just the slightest bit aroused. He was going to blame most of _that_ on the nearly-dying and the adrenaline. And how insanely hot he found the understated competence of who he assumed to be another hunter. Just the way the man walked ought to be made illegal.

Not entirely unprofessional, Clint proved his talent at multitasking by drooling over his savior and stabbing the male vampire with a syringe full of dead man's blood at the same time. This made it very easy for the stranger to chop the creature's head off in one smooth gesture.

So. Clint _wasn't_ going to die.

The truth of that statement hit him like a train as the last vampire head rolled on the floor. Clint stumbled. Luckily, the other man was there to catch him, gripping his shoulder with a strangely unyielding hand, which Clint assumed was a prosthetic. A pretty good one considering he'd used it to lift one of the vamps without any sign of effort.

He seemed as surprised as Clint to be holding him up, eyes moving between his hand and Clint's face.

“Hello stranger. Thanks for saving my life.”

The man frowned at him but didn't move until Clint had regained his footing and stepped away by himself.

“Seriously man. Thanks. Thought I was toast for a while there.” Clint pocketed the two syringes of dead man's blood he had left and went looking for the machete that had been confiscated after his capture. “I only expected there to be, like, three of them max. Didn't bring any backup.” Still looking for his weapon, he moved past the set of shelves that separated out the area he'd been held in from the front of the warehouse. “I would have totally handled it if there had been less of them. I know this isn't the best first impression, but I'm really-” He stopped in his tracks and his babbling simultaneously. The front of the warehouse was a mess. There was a visible indent in the metal front door and a collapsed set of shelves to one side. There were also four vampire corpses with assorted severed head. One of the bodies seemed to have had his arm crushed to the bone.

“You did all of this yourself?” Clint asked the stranger, looking him in the eyes for the first time. They were a light color, something between blue and grey. They contrasted nicely with the dark lengths of hair that had escaped from his ponytail and now framed his face. Which Clint noticed because of... reasons. Reasons totally unrelated to the flush he still felt from watching the guy's murder strut earlier.

The stranger nodded in answer to Clint's question, without offering any additional information.

Not much of a talker. Probably had things to hide.

Who didn't, though?

Clint could work with this. One of his best friends was a Nephilim and had only told him _after_ the end of the world. He could handle secrets.

Especially the kind that saved his life.

“You've got moves. I owe you one. Let me buy you a drink.”

Clint figured he had nothing to lose and everything to gain from staying in the stranger's company just a little bit longer. Worst thing worst? The guy left Clint behind. He had saved his life after all, probably wouldn't have gone to all that trouble only to slit Clint's throat in an alleyway later on. But maybe he would agree to a beer. And if he did, then Clint would have company for a few hours. It wasn't something he usually refused, not with how thin his skin had become from life on the road, constantly alone because that was the only thing that felt safe.

Some hunters worked as pairs, or even in small groups. But loyalty was too easy to use as weakness.

“You don't know me,” the stranger replied to Clint's offer.

The hunter raised an eyebrow. “No? That's kind of the point of getting a drink, you know. Getting to know each other beyond _he saved my life, is totally badass and has got killer thighs._ ”

He might have been a little heavy on the flirting there, from the stranger's confused reaction, but hey. If this got awkward, Clint could probably blame it on a concussion or something. Was that how concussions worked?

“I mean, no obligation to overshare. If you just want a free drink that's fine by me as well. Might help you relax. Not to be a critic, but you look tense. I mean, I get it, hunting is a stressful job. No shame in needing a massage from time to time.”

Clint stopped his babbling, scratching the back of his neck. His rescuer was still just... staring at him. In a blank way that felt vaguely threatening. Well. Clint knew a thing or two about tough crowds. He'd honed his skills in a low-end circus, after all.

“The name is Clint Barton,” by the way.

For a moment, he expected the stranger not to answer.

“James Barnes.”

The name rang a bell to Clint, but he couldn't put his finger on why. Figuring he would look it up later, he gestured towards the exit of the warehouse.

“Lead the way then, James.”

For a few, long seconds, he didn't move, and Clint really thought it would all end there. Then James sighed, said “okay,” and started walking.

Truth be told, the man's quietness only made Clint more and more curious about him. It didn't feel like usual hunter gruffness (Clint was very well aware that his over-friendly demeanor was a rarity among those of his calling). Looking at his vampire kills, the man was far from the usual hunter. Maybe Clint could learn a thing or two from him. Not that he _needed_ to. He was a perfectly competent, even above-average, hunter. On the days when he didn't get bad intel about the number of vampires he was supposed to face. However, it never hurt to be prepared. Be prepared for more, be prepared for the worst.

Six years ago, Clint Barton, new to the world of killing monsters, eager and ready to redeem himself after what had felt like a whole lifetime of criminality, had woken up to angels falling from the sky. After that, he had promised himself two things.

One: Always be prepared for your world to end.

Two: Don't give up on it no matter what.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Willing my Winterhawk Bingo square "Bar Fight."
> 
> This chapter is going up sooner than I expected but I just wanna remind you that I can't promise a regular schedule on this fic, at least not until I finish posting my current big fic project.

Two years after the end of the world, Bucky Barnes found himself in a bar. He didn't usually do bars. Especially bars like this, where hunters congregated. How nice for them that they didn't have to hide their activities anymore.

Bucky couldn't relate.

But the blond hunter – Clint, he'd said his name was Clint – had insisted. Over and over. Until Bucky had given in. When was the last time he'd gone out for a drink?

Probably right after Lucifer, when he stil didn't understand what had happened and what it meant for him.

He'd learned quickly.

Clint and Bucky were sitting on either side of a small table in one of the far corners of the dingy establishment. Bucky had taken the chair that would put his back to the room. Not the safest position, but it would lower the chances of him being recognized.

Clint was telling a story about how his best friend wouldn't allow him to get a dog after they'd hunted a skinwalker together and how Clint had ended up adopting a stray anyway and now the best friend had stolen the dog on the grounds that Clint travelled too much to take care of it.

Bucky was only half-listening. He was, however, watching Clint intently as he talked.

Something about him reminded Bucky of Steve. Not just the obvious blond hair and blue eyes combo, but something about his attitude, the easy warmth of his smile.

Most of the time, Bucky tried not to think about Steve. That way lay madness. That way lay the feeling of a star crawling under his skin and setting fire to his insides. That way lay the guilt of watching his best friend be ripped apart by a hellhound and being unable to stop it and the fact that it had all been his fault in the first place. There lay the knowledge of his betrayal, the taste of blood on his tongue, the freedom of not caring anymore and the late realization that he had been in a cage all along.

The feeling of Steve's bones snapping under his hands. The sound Steve's sword made as it pierced through his chest.

Clint drained half of his beer in one gulp and then burped, breaking Bucky out of the loop of memories.

“So, that's me. Ex-carnie, ex-thief, turned hunter and dog-owner. What about you? Military?”

“What?” Bucky asked, having barely followed half of what Clint had been talking about.

The blond made a vague gesture encompassing Bucky. “You've got a vibe. And you're _very_ efficient at killing monsters.”

Bucky didn't flinch, because he knew it was true. He could be very efficient at killing a lot of things.

“Yeah. Army. For a time.”

And the thing was, it wasn't even a lie. Bucky _had_ been in the army, for two short years what felt like a lifetime ago. But admitting to that wasn't sharing any kind of truth, because Bucky hadn't learned to fight the way he did today in _that_ kind of army.

Bucky didn't elaborate, letting silence settle across the table once again. Maybe Clint would finally get the hint and stop trying to drag him into a conversation.

Instead, the hunter only stared at him, nursing the second half of his beer. Part of Bucky wanted to admit how impressed he was that they'd found a place that still sold beer. Commercial operations had been seriously disrupted after the second year of the Apocalypse, when the Croatoan virus had started spreading across North America. Nowadays, the easiest thing to come by was some kind of homemade moonshine. A lot of people had become quite reliant on it during the War.

But this hunter bar in the middle of nowhere had beer, and one part of Bucky wanted to thank Clint for bringing him here. All the _other_ parts told him that he didn't deserve it and didn't belong.

So Bucky sipped his drink and didn't talk and tried not to think of Steve.

At least he'd saved someone's life today. At least he'd done something more than just kill people. (You weren't supposed to think of monsters as people. It made hunting a whole lot harder. But Bucky had killed a lot of humans without really considering them as people either, and the boundaries had all become a lot blurrier after that. The only way not to do a wrong thing was not to kill anyone, but Bucky had tried that as well. It hadn't worked. It hadn't been enough.)

A hand settled on Bucky's shoulder from behind him. “Hey, sorry to bother, but I think you dropped something-”

Before Bucky could turn towards the source of the voice, a second hand dragged his left sleeve upwards. It didn't take more for Bucky to know exactly what was happening.

He'd known it wasn't a good idea to follow Clint. There was a reason he kept away from other people, and from hunters especially. This had been bound to happen again sooner rather than later, but he'd just thought... For once, Bucky had done a good thing, and he had thought the world might give him a break just long enough to celebrate that.

The man who had grabbed his sleeve took a step back. “Fuck. I knew it.” And then he threw a punch.

Bucky moved quicker than him. He'd seen it coming. He had known it was coming. And so he stood up quickly, letting his chair clatter to the ground, and twisted the man's wrist behind his back. He pushed him into the table, pressing against him until he was forced to bend over slightly.

“I don't want to hurt you. I'm just minding my own business. If you leave now, I'll leave too. No one gets hurt.”

The man hissed out a bitter laugh. “Tell that to all the people who died because of you, you monster.”

Bucky had heard it all before, but his grip still tightened unvoluntarily. “Please,” Bucky said. He looked up, catching Clint's gaze. The blond was still sitting, but he had pushed his chair back, was ready to move if he needed to. He was waiting, assessing the situation. There were probably others around them doing just the same. This was a _hunter bar_ , damnit, why had Bucky thought this could be a good idea? But at least there wasn't any sign of recognition in Clint's eyes. If he hadn't seen Bucky's arm, there was a chance that the other patrons hadn't either, and with a little luck they could chalk all of this up to a misunderstanding. “Please. Just leave me alone and I'll get on my way.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Bucky started pulling back. He let the man stand up and face him again.

The fact that the stranger didn't take him up on his offer didn't surprise him. The fact that he responded by spitting in his face did.

Bucky only vaguely noticed that Clint finally stood up from his chair at that. He was distracted by the next thing that came out of the man's mouth: “You think I'm stupid enough to let the devil walk away from me?”

That caught the attention of the other bar patrons. Bucky could feel it as a new form of tension circulating through the air.

“We might not have demons to kill anymore, but taking revenge on you is gonna be even sweeter.” The man lunged forward.

Bucky ducked, taking the punch aimed at his head in his left shoulder instead. The man yowled in pain as his fist hit the metal. From the corner of his eye, Bucky noticed that some more hunters were approaching. There went his attempt at diffusing. This was definitely going to evolve in a full-on fight.

First things first, he focused again on the first man, blocking another punch and kicking his legs out from under him. Bucky pushed, sending the stranger tumbling into his chair from earlier. Then he turned towards the rest of the room. “I'm not here for a fight.”

He had known it wouldn't work but had tried anyway, so he felt slightly less bad when he punched the next person who tried to grab him right in their face. Then everything became at once both blurry and more focused. Bucky lost himself, like he often did when he fought. He became a body. Or, rather, he let his body be and receded into the vast empty field of himself, folding his thoughts away into nothingness to make more space for the simple instinct of _fighting_.

This was why, Bucky supposed, it took him so long to realize that someone was at his side. His subconscious had acknowledged this information and taken advantage of it, letting the other person have his back and focusing on one half of his opponents only, but it hadn't really _registered_. Until it did. The suddenness of the realization made Bucky's focus slip, made him whole again, made him feel entirely too clearly the pain of a knife slicing through his upper right arm. He barely acknowledged the sensation, moving to disarm his opponent even as he turned his head slightly.

The way Clint fought wasn't pretty. It wasn't clean or calculated. It was wild, dirty and dangerous, both to himself and to the people he went up against. It was also efficient, in a way Bucky could only have guessed at earlier, not having seen Clint going up against the vampires that had captured him.

Still, they were outnumbered. And if not all people here were as good fighters as them, they were still hunters.

“Clint,” Bucky said, low and urgent. The other man didn't react, so Bucky just grabbed his right hand (the other being currently used to fend someone off with a broken bottle) and pulled. Clint winced in pain and stumbled for half a step before righting himself, looking down at Bucky. He indicated the front door with a gesture of his head. Clint nodded subtly, and they both started moving, no longer just fending off attackers but instead pushing them away to clear a path.

People noticed, because they weren't idiots, and three hunters moved to block the door. “Do we really have to go through the final dramatic stand-off?” Clint groaned. “Is it not enough for you to know that we won't be able to ever again enjoy the only decent bar in Utah?”

A white woman with a brown ponytail tried to hit him with what Bucky was pretty sure was the broken foot of a chair. Clint dodged her, but couldn't escape the punch that another hunter aimed at him, narrowly avoiding a broken nose but earning a split lip in the process. Bucky'd had enough. The third hunter came at him with a knife, which Bucky wrenched out of his grip easily enough, slicing a deep cut through the tendons in his thigh and kicking him in the chest as he fell. Clint was busy holding back the woman with her chair foot, so Bucky took care of the second hunter. He knocked her unconscious, wincing as he did and hoping she would wake up without any kind of brain damage. Then he slid the knife he'd taken under the last hunter throat, asking her to drop her weapon. She didn't, but she was smart enough to freeze, and Clint was smart enough to slip past her, finally open the door and step outside.

“I'm sorry about all of this,” Bucky said before stabbing the hunter in the thigh, then kicking her until she sprawled forward.

Then Bucky ran. He was surprised to notice the open door on the side of Clint's van, but didn't hesitate before climbing in. Clint floored it before he got the door closed, although that didn't mean much considering the maximum speed of the van. Still, it was enough. Barely, judging by the sound of a gun going off behind them.

Silence settled over them after that as Clint focused on driving and making them as difficult as possible to follow. Bucky approved.

He watched Clint for a few minutes as he drove. His split lip had left a trail of blood down his chin, the knuckles of his left hand were scraped and the right one was alarmingly swollen. _Dislocated fingers_ , Bucky thought, remembering the vampire nest and the restraints on the floor.

“So. Does that kind of thing happen often?”

Clint kept his eyes on the road as he spoke, but there was something pointed in his tone that let Bucky know he meant business. Bucky couldn't really begrudge him, although that didn't mean he liked it.

“I don't know. This was the first time I went to a bar in a year and a half.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “You know that's not what I mean.”

When it was made clear that Bucky wouldn't volunteer any more information on his own, Clint sighed. “You're not gonna make this easy, are you? Fine. The guy who first grabbed you said something about not letting the devil walk away from him. So, are you?”

Tension coiled within Bucky's body. “Am I what?”

It was cruel to make Clint say it aloud, but Bucky needed the whole ugly truth of things to be acknowledged.

“Are you Lucifer's vessel and did you start the Apocalypse?”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence after that.

“Shit. That's fucked up, man. Even by _my_ standards.”

Bucky stared at Clint, bewildered.

“What, do I have something on my face?”

“You... I expected more of a reaction than that.”

“Well, I already knew, so it's not like your answer was any kind of surprise.”

“You can stop the car, you know. You can leave.”

“I know. But I can also drive drive some more until I'm certain no one's followed us and find a safe place to spend the night.”

“You don't have to do this. You don't owe me anything.”

“Well, technically, I owe you my life, but who's counting?”

“I mean it, Clint. This is dangerous. I'm dangerous. I started the end of the world and-”

“Did you want to do it?”

“What?”

“Start the Apocalypse. Were you actively trying to end the world?”

“No! No, but I-”

“Then I'm gonna keep driving and find us a safe place to spend the night.”

Bucky could have done a number of things, then. He could have pulled the emergency brake on Clint's van. He could have opened his door and jumped out. He could have put a knife to the other man's throat, could have made him understand how dangerous he really was.

He _should_ have done one of those things. Should have walked away from Clint's life and the chaos and pain he was sure to bring to it.

But Bucky was frozen in place, thoughts gone hazy with the impossibility of it all. Someone wanted to _help_.

“Why are you doing this?” he forced himself to ask.

Clint shrugged. “I know a thing or two about being possessed. Hurting people when you're not in control. And I know angels are different, that the vessel has to be willing but... But it's the devil we're talking about. I don't know the whole story, but I know that it's over now. So if you tell me that you didn't mean to start all of this, I believe you.”

“You could get hurt. If people know you helped me, they'll hurt you.”

Clint sighed. “Listen, man. Getting hurt is nothing new to me. Being on the run is nothing new to me. I can make my own choices like a grown-up, okay? And don't think I'm letting you off too easy, because you're gonna have some serious explaining to do. But for now? Just let yourself be helped.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter was "Exposition 101" this one is "We need to talk about Bucky's backstory." .......... I promise there's gonna be plot in this thing at some point. Maybe.
> 
> Thanks for your support so far! Let me know what you thought of this chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Clint stopped his van in the empty patch of gravel that served as a parking lot to a small rest camp, he had been driving for far too long. James had told him to stop several times, he'd even offered to drive instead, but Clint hadn't let him. As he asked question after question, slowly pulling the whole story out of James, he'd needed the familiar focus of his eyes on the road to keep his throughts from spiraling. But the story had been told, now, and Clint's body and mind both ached.

He didn't get out of the van right away, taking a second to just breathe. James watched him in silence.

When he felt like he could stand up without his legs giving out, Clint slowly opened his door. Before getting out, however, he turned once more towards James. “You wanna stay here while I check whether they have some space free?”

James nodded, re-settling in his seat. He looked tired. Not in a physical sense, not in the same way Clint was tired, his body still craving caffeine even after four years of short supplies. James looked weary, the kind of existential fatigue that burrowed into your bones and settled into your soul until it was the only thing you could breathe.

Clint got out of the van.

The camp wasn't much. Two repurposed barns and some tents set up outside. But it promised running water and safety in numbers. This practically counted as luxury nowadays, at least as soon as you stepped outside of the few re-urbanized zones.

Clint entered the first barn, catching the attention of a middle-aged black woman who was sitting behind a desk reading. Asking for two beds earned him a raised eyebrows, so Clint had to specify that his companion had severe social anxiety and that was why he was waiting in their van. It barely eased the woman's suspicion, and she made sure to show Clint the gun that was clearly within her reach as she told him the rules of the place. It was all standard stuff. Don't bother anyone sleeping, limit your water usage, don't pull out a weapon unless someone sounds the alarm and don't sound the alarm unless something is seriously wrong.

“Make sure your friend knows how to behave as well,” the woman finished, clearly implying that she didn't trust Clint and his secrecy.

Clint waved her concern away, paying their fee for the night before going back to pick up James and their stuff. The other man followed him quietly to the second barn, where they claimed two camping beds. There weren't too many people around that night, which was good. Rest camps attracted all kinds of drifters, people who had no other place to go to, people who were too scared to stop moving, but also hunters and militia soldiers. People who might recognize James.

James, the actual devil's vessel. Clint looked at him, carefully unpacking a change of clothes from the one duffel bag he carried with him. He tried to see what others saw, a personification of all that had gone wrong in the last six years, the manifestation of humanity's fear and pain given a mortal form.

Clint only saw a man. A defeated, desperate and dirty man.

“You should take the first shower. I'll keep watch over our stuff.”

James nodded and went, without complaining about Clint giving him orders.

The hunter settled on his bed, arms crossed behind his head. Thinking about James made him think about his own past, about living the circus and the crime ring it had hidden, trying to find a life for himself and being so desperate for someone to tell him what he should do. For someone to give him a way to redeem himself.

But that was all behind him. There was no redemption to be had in a world like this. There was only survival and the ludicrous idea that maybe it was worth it to fight and make the earth just a little safer for the other humans inhabiting it. Not redemption, but maybe a way to be able to look at yourself in the mirror. Or maybe just the knowledge that you weren't good for anything else.

James came back from the shower and Clint took his place, trading one of the tokens he'd been given when checking in against five short minutes of hot water.

James was already lying in his bed when he walked back into the dorm. Clint followed his example and settled down.

He found he couldn't fall asleep.

The way James had told the story was this:

He'd been a hunter. Him and his best friend, Steve Rogers. (Clint had heard about Steve. The hero. The one who'd won the war. Or at least survived it. There were still people who believed that angels had tried to save them. That they were anything but another self-serving kind of monsters. Those people had needed a new Messiah and had chosen the golden-haired man whose body had lead the charge against hell's army. For the longest time, Clint hadn't thought the man was even real.)

And then Steve had died and James had become... something else. (He hadn't explained. Clint hadn't asked, because he'd seen the haunted look in James' eyes and known this was a nightmare he didn't want to share.)

Then he'd spoken of a demon to kill, a seal to break, a lie that had been told and an angel that had been freed. Not any angel, but Lucifer himself. James had spoken of a soft voice and even softer promises and an end to the constant burden of moving with nothing to follow. (Clint had noticed both the fear and the longing in James' voice when telling this part, and he had remembered how beautiful artists always made the Devil to be.)

Then war. _The_ War. With emphasis and a capital letter. The official End of the World, beginning when a man had turned too tired to keep saying no and ending with James facing the worst truth he'd ever had to recognize. (From the moment James had spoken of Steve Rogers' death as the thing that had ruined his life, Clint had known the ending to this story would be of the most bitter kind.)

Bucky had had no control over his body for the four years he'd been possessed by Lucifer. He did not remember all of this time, but could recall bits and pieces. Mostly blood. One moment, he acutely remembered. A battle that had ravaged an entire town in Kansas. Angels and demons and human vessels covering the ground like so many dead leaves in autumn. Walking through the slaughter. Feeling his own lips smirk, his mouth part on a name, _Michael_ , and seeing the reason he had given up stare back at him with unfeeling eyes.

Steve Rogers had died and he had gone to hell and his death had broken his best friend. Only _after that_ had Heaven decided to bring him back to life, to turn him into a sword for their most powerful archangel, so that the battle for the world could be waged between two brothers (two angels who hated each other) and two men who had shared everything but blood (and who had loved each other more than life itself.)

James remembered every detail of that day. He remembered the visceral anger twisting his insides even as his lips smiled coolly. He knew the exact shape of Steve's wrist under his fingers, and he knew how twisted that shape could become. He knew what it felt like to punch until ribs cracked.

He could intimately recall the feeling of a blade piercing through his chest and the feeling of a universe folding in on itself inside his too-frail body.

(Clint had held his breath, had kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. He couldn't imagine what it felt like to have experienced all of this from up close. Being on the sidelines and watching angels fall and humans die had been bad enough. He couldn't understand how strong one had to be to survive this and _go on.)_

But then...

Clint had asked a question.

A simple question, really.

What had happened to Michael?

The consensus among what was left of humanity, at least among those who didn't still worship angels, was that the War had ended in the total annihilation of both sides involved. No one had seen neither a demon nor an angel since whatever had happened in Lawrence. It was logical to assume that none had survived. If they had... Well. It had been a battle for the world, hadn't it? Surely someone would have stepped up to claim what was left of it, if anybody had been left to do so.

But Bucky had been adamant about Lucifer dying. About Michael winning. And Clint couldn't figure out a reason why he might lie about it.

“So, you have no idea what happened after Lucifer died?” Clint had asked. From the corner of his eyes, he had seen Bucky's gaze get lost in the scenery flashing by around them.

“No. I don't... I don't think I should even be alive. There was so much pain from Lucifer that I didn't really think about it but... Michael's sword didn't only kill Lucifer. It went right through _me_. There's no way I should have been able to survive a wound like that, not without an angel possessing me.”

“You're supposed to be dead and you're not, and Michael's supposed to be alive but he's... gone? That's what you're saying?”

“Yeah.”

Clint had sighed. “That sounds like kind of an anti-climactic ending to the end of the world, if you ask me.”

James had stared at him, so much that Clint had felt compelled to take his eyes off the road just long enough to watch him raise an eyebrow.

“Right. I guess it's one of those things where you had to be there. What about Rogers, though?”

“Steve? What about him?”

“Well, if he was Michael's vessel, isn't he the one most likely to know about whatever happened?”

James went silent at that, something in his eyes closing off.

“I mean, he's kind of... public. As much as you can be, nowadays. He has like... followers, you know? It's kind of suspicious that he hasn't disputed any of the rumors about what truly happened in Lawrence. Don't you think?”

James had made a noncommital noise at that, and Clint had figured it was better to drop the subject.

He had plenty to think about already.

When the next day came, sunlight violently pouring in through too-thin curtains, he didn't wake up so much as stumble out of sleep. For a few long and terrifying seconds, he had no idea where he was. Instinct kicked in and made him scramble up in panic, before his brain finally got online and his eyes fell onto James. Who was definitely too awake for the early hour, and who was also definitely watching Clint.

“Dude. Don't _Twilight_ me. That's creepy.”

“What?”

Clint groaned. “Not enough coffee left in this world for me to explain _Twilight_ , forget it.” He stretched his hands above his head, sitting up properly. “So, we hitting the road now? Avoiding traffic?” It was a terrible joke consider traffic this side of the Apocalypse was pretty much unheard of. Sue him, he'd never actually worked as a clown, despite all of his brother's ribbing about it during their time in the circus.

“What?”

Clint shrugged. “Just saying. I don't think they serve breakfast here, and if they did I'm pretty sure the reception lady would poison ours anyway. I'd rather take my chances and go into some town for a supply run.”

“Clint.”

Clint could already guess from James' tone what he was about to say, but he had decided a long time ago that life was too short not to be a nuisance when people were about to do things you didn't like.

“What?”

“You can't stay with me. I told you, it's dangerous.”

“I survived the end of the world, I'll be fine.”

“Clint-”

The hunter shook his head. “Let's get out of here. We can argue in the van where we won't bother anyone.”

James sighed, but nodded.

They re-packed their bags efficiently, like hunters and soldiers were trained to do. Who wasn't a soldier in this world?

As soon as they were seated in the van, Clint once again behind the wheel, James re-started the argument.

“Drop me off somewhere. Pick a direction, drive, and I'll walk the other way.”

Clint laid his forehead on his steering wheel. _What he wouldn't give for a cup of coffee_.

“James. Stop. I'm not gonna do that.”

“ _Why?_ Because I saved your life? I didn't even mean to! I had no idea there was a human in there! I was just supposed to kill the vampires and get on my way again!”

Clint couldn't help himself and started laughing somewhat hysterically. “Are you hearing yourself? I saved your life but I didn't _mean to_? If that's your attempt at making yourself out to be the bad guy, it's a pretty weak one.”

James frowned like a wet kitten, apparently offended that Clint refused to treat the supposed danger he posed seriously.

“Listen. You're right when you say that I have no idea what I'm walking into and that it's probably more dangerous than I can imagine. I'm just a guy. A damn good hunter, sure, but also just a regular human guy. I'm not match against angels or an army of demons. But we don't have angels or demons anymore. Just regular monsters and regular humans. And I've faced those plenty throughout my life. So trust me to take care of myself, yeah?”

James took in his tirade in silence. He didn't look happy about it, but he seemed receptive enough.

“If you give me a good reason to leave you alone, I will. Only if you give me a good reason. Because from my perspective? You're one of the best fighters I've met, so sticking with you sounds like a pretty decent plan. And I have to admit that I'm... curious. About this whole Apocalypse business. Oh – and I cannot emphasize this enough – you also look so futzing _lonely_ , man, there's no way I'm just walking out on you.”

The mixed expression of confusion, dismay and offense that took up Jame's face was one of the funniest thing Clint had ever seen.

“Are you mocking me?” Bucky asked.

Clint grinned. “Don't worry, only a little.” He punctuated that reponse with a fist bump against James' shoulder, forgetting that the one closest to him was prosthetic but not letting it faze him. “So. How about we go look for some breakfast?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have already reached the point of the story where I curse myself for complicating my own life with worldbuilding. This entire chapter and probably the following one wouldn't have existed if I hadn't decided it didn't make sense for cellphones to still be a thing in this post-Apocalypse reality.  
> But at least I can make jokes about Clint missing coffee.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And weeeeeeeeee're BACK!
> 
> Sorry it took me so long to update! I'm doing NaNoWriMo this month, so while I've made a lot of progress in drafting this fic as well as a few others, I haven't had much time at all to edit the chapters I've already written.
> 
> The good news is that I finished posting my previous multi-chaptered fic (if you're into the idea of a Bucky/Steve/Peggy Singin' in the Rain AU, it's called "The Whole Night Through"), which means that Wiersa is now officially my Main Project. So from now on, I'll do my very very best to update every week!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this new chapter!
> 
> It feels my WinterHawk Bingo square for "No More Arrows."

Bucky had forgotten what it was to believe there was a force in the universe that wanted you good.

Clint Barton could definitely be classified as a force in the universe.

And, unlikely as that sounded, it seemed he truly wanted to do good by Bucky.

It threw him off-balance. Waking up alone on the edge of a burnt-up town, his body healed and his mind holding on by a tenuous thread, Bucky had been reassured by a single certainty: the new world order was about one thing only, and that was survival. Bucky knew a great deal about how to survive.

Except Clint was proving him wrong, showing him that people could still care about more than themselves even in the wreckage of the Apocalypse. It brought back too many feelings within him that Bucky had thought he'd buried a long time ago.

The thing was, as much as he hated to admit it, being Lucifer's vessel had been easy. Oh, there had been pain. A lot of it. A constant ache as Bucky's body struggled to hold something it had never been meant to. But Bucky could handle physical pain. It was predictable. Something to endure, but also something he could survive. It had been a small price to pay for the freedom of not having to think, not having to face himself and his choices, not _having_ to choose anymore.

Lucifer had been kind, in a way. He'd kept his promise. He had offered Bucky the relief he had been craving and let him be.

There had been something terribly beautiful about the emptiness of his own mind as he watched his own body slaughter thousands.

The silence had been a relief after the years of incessantly screaming thoughts that had followed Steve's death. He hadn't been able to deal with his emotions in any productive way then. Not having them at all had seemed like the better option.

And now...

Now Bucky was wondering if it was time to try again. Do it right this time.

From what Clint had said, it seemed clear that Steve was still out there. It was one of the truths that Bucky had been running away from for the past two years, going on hunt after hunt in an attempt not to face all that had happened and all he had become.

Maybe it was time to face that truth. But first he had to find a way to finally face himself.

Clint made it seem so easy to look at him and see something worth sticking around for. Maybe letting the blond hunter tag along for a little while wasn't too much of a bad idea. Maybe Bucky could learn a thing or two from him.

Over breakfast, Clint had asked if Bucky had had any idea of where to head to next. Bucky had shrugged, explaining that he usually just wandered around until he found a hunt or a hunt found him.

“There has to be a more efficient way to go about it than that.”

Bucky had shrugged. “I'm not exactly part of the hunter network. And it's not as if I actually have a goal in mind. It just... passes the time.”

And, yes, maybe he should have expected the concerned look that Clint had thrown his way after that particular comment. Bucky wasn't used to needing to hide how empty his life was. Usually he was the only one to witness it.

But Clint hadn't pried. Instead he'd asked if Bucky didn't mind if they made their way to Los Angeles. Bucky had replied that one direction was as good as any other.

He hadn't asked, but Clint had still told him that he wanted to go to LA to see his best friend and his dog. Clint kept doing that. Volunteering information about himself like it didn't need to be guarded. Like it couldn't all be used to find his weaknesses.

How easy it would be to hurt him.

The thought crossed Bucky's mind several times over the course of a few days as Clint started playing the same CD's over and over again on the van's radio. The most frustrating thing was that Bucky couldn't actually begrudge the man, because they couldn't exactly catch local radio stations out on the road like this, and he wasn't sure he would find having to make conversation a lot more agreeable.

Still.

Clint didn't _have_ to own Taylor Swift's _Fearless_.

“Shit. Mind if we detour for a hunt?”

Clint's voice cut through the haze that had settled over Bucky's mind has he watched the scenery go by. He blinked back to reality, surprised at the carelessness of zoning out like that.

“A hunt?”

“Yeah. I mean, probably. There was a sign indicating werewolves. Might be a false alarm, or it might have been taken care of already, but I'd feel better if we checked it out.”

“There was a sign?”

Clint frowned. “Yeah? Hunter signs. You know, vagabond code.”

Bucky shook his head. He had no idea what Clint was talking about.

“Okay. So when you were saying that you always hunted alone, you really meant _alone_ right? Every hunter knows about vagabond code. Only way not to step into active croat zones.”

“Didn't exactly have to worry about that when I was possessed by Lucifer.”

That was enough for silence to settle across the van.

“Right. I guess most of them had already died down by the time you got your body back so...”

Bucky shrugged.

“Shit, man. This is _weird_. You're operating on a whole other wavelength than like... everybody I know.”

“Do you only know hunters?”

Bucky hadn't meant to ask an awkward question, but Clint grimaced anyway.

“I guess I'm just not close to a lot of people anymore.”

Another silence. It was strange how many different qualities lack of noise could have. It was always sharper with another person in the room than the silence that accompanied aloneness. Bucky was used to aloneness.

“So, werewolves?”

Bucky might not be accustomed to hunters and their ways, but he sure was used to hunting.

Every monster was different, but when you'd spent months learning to exorcise demons with your mind and then years killing angels, there wasn't much out there that could really pose a challenge.

Werewolves were pretty straightforward, and far from the most dangerous kinds of monster. Purebloods were sometimes a problem, since they could shift at will, but for the ones who only changed during full moons, the hardest part was to find out who they were.

That hadn't been a problem here, because as soon as they had entered the quaint little town, Clint had spotted another of his hunter signs and stopped the van in front of an unremarkable house.

He looked around before ringing, but the street was deserted.

Bucky didn't like towns like these. Places that still retained a façade of normality, houses still standing in neat little rows despite their overgrown gardens. He couldn't help but think of doll houses when he saw people moving inside those kinds of buildings.

He could deal with rest camps, with people roughing it on the side of the road. Someone sleeping with their backpack as a pillow was a person who knew how to survive. Someone living between four walls with doors and windows was trying to pretend they didn't have to fight.

The stranger who opened the door was in their late twenties, half of their head shaved and the other reaching their chin.

“You hunters?”

“Yeah,” Clint replied. “We saw the signs. Still need help with those werewolves?”

The stranger nodded, gesturing for them to come into the house.

Bucky wasn't exactly comfortable, but he followed Clint. He had agreed to this. Besides, if there was a hunt, Bucky couldn't just walk away. He had tried that before.

“We're not happy about having to ask for outside help,” the stranger said, leading them into a dining room and gesturing for them to sit. “But we're a pretty small community, and a bunch of us had to leave about a week ago. Complicated pregnancy. Needed to get to a hospital. We figure it's a small pack, settled on the other side of town.”

“Settled when?” Clint asked.

Bucky was out of his depth here. He didn't usually do this kind of thing. He didn't interrogate people. He just followed trails when he found them and defended himself when he was attacked. He didn't understand this talk of _community_ , not anymore. He wasn't sure he ever had. Was pouring your whole life into that of _one_ other person a form of community?

“A while back. They were quiet at first, and we didn't want to start a turf war. Can't afford to, not with how low on supplies we are. But the full moon was three nights ago and we found two bodies. Hearts missing. Seems pretty straightforward.”

Clint nodded. “Right.”

“So, will you help?”

“We'll take care of it. Just us two.”

The stranger frowned, and Bucky did too. Not because he felt like they _needed_ backup. He'd seen Clint fight in the bar a few days back, and the man had been impressive despite the fact that he'd been pulling his punches, trying to avoid permanent injuries. If that was anything to go by, the hunter could hold up his end in any altercation.

“We still have a few people. We know how to fight.”

“Yeah, I bet you do. It's nothing against you or your people. Me and James just work better alone. We'll take care of them.”

The stranger carefully agreed, and they and Clint spent some more time discussing the situation.

When they finally left the house, Bucky turned towards the hunter.

“Why aren't you letting them help?”

Clint sighed, running a hand through his hair with a tired expression. He'd been driving for hours before they stopped here. Going on a hunt in this state and without backup was far from a smart move.

“They're too involved. If we had taken them with us, anyone from here, they would have started shooting right away, no questions asked.”

“Because your plan is to walk up to a wolf pack and ask them questions?”

Clint rolled his eyes.

“I want to check that they're actually werewolves before we start shooting them in the heart. It's the least we can do. For all we know, the group that settled there is just a bunch of innocent people trying to make a home for themselves. Maybe the werewolves just passed through the town and left. Maybe it wasn't werewolves at all.”

“Despite the missing hearts?”

“Look, man, I'm not saying it's _not_ werewolves. This seems like a pretty well-cut situation, and if it is? Great. I'll take the first shot. I just want to check first.”

Despite Clint's nice sentiments, there weren't a lot of ways you could check if someone was a werewolf outside of a full moon. Pretty much the only one was to cut them with silver, the sting of which was usually enough to trigger a partial shift even in the most diluted of bloodlines. And they couldn't exactly walk up to a house and start cutting people open.

Clint parked his van a few blocks away from the potential werewolf den. Opening the back, he handed Bucky the duffel bag that contained his weapons, picking out his own.

Bucky pulled out a standard pistol and a store of silver bullets. Clint chose a bow and a quiver of arrows. (Although Bucky noticed that he also kept a gun on his person.)

Apparently, Bucky was staring a little, because Clint waved a hand at him. “Yeah, I know, paleolithic weapon, blah blah blah. I got better aim with this than with any gun, and I've got silver-tipped arrows. Easier to recover than bullets.”

“Didn't say anything.”

“Right. You're not much of a talker.”

It wasn't hard to spot the three inhabited houses in a neighbourhood full of empty shells. It was smart to spread over several buildings, made it look like the group was composed of more people. Still it didn't take too long for Bucky and Clint to scout the three houses and realize there were only five werewolves there. There might be a few more outside, but Clint and Bucky both agreed it wasn't worth it to wait and see. They might as well go in, do what they had to do. If others came by later, they would probably be smart enough to pack up and leave. If not, the locals would handle them.

They broke into one of the neighbouring houses, taking advantage of a balcony to get a clear view of the first house's living-room, where two people were sitting. A third one was further into the residence. They would have to move to reach the other targets, but this was a good spot for now.

“You break the window, I'll graze one of them with my silver arrows. If they don't shift, we get the hell out of here. We're not here to fight humans.”

Bucky wasn't happy Clint felt like he needed to insist on that, but he let it slide. They didn't know each other, and Bucky didn't trust _himself_ most days. He couldn't really expect that kind of sentiment from a random hunter whose life he'd saved.

Instead he nodded, pulled the safety off on his gun, straightened over the balcony and fired two quick shots through the main living room window.

“Fuck, warn a guy-” Clint complained, although he followed Bucky immediately. He loosed his arrow before the glass had even hit the ground, and grazed the thigh of one of the figures inside the house.

They doubled over in pain, and a ripple ran through their body. Claws extended from their fingers, even as the second figures reached out for them.

“Okay, so definitely werewolves.”

Bucky ignored Clint, shooting the injured figure through the chest. The second was smart enough to move out of the way though, realizing there was nothing they could do for their pack mate.

Bucky was about to turn away and walk back into the house, but he saw Clint draw back his bow from the corner of his eyes.

The third person they'd seen during their earlier recon had joined the party, and they were apparently a pureblood, because their body had visibly shifted already.

Clint fired, his arrow going straight for the figure.

The werewolf growled, moving too fast for the eye to follow and seemingly plucking the arrow out of thin air. Clint cursed, drawing and firing another arrow. Bucky followed his lead, taking another shot, but the wolf ducked under cover.

It looked like they had a face-off on their hands.

They were protected well enough by the balcony, and the werewolves didn't look armed anyway, so it would seem they were ready to wait each other out.

Except that Bucky heard noise coming from the house he and Clint were in. It figured that the last two wolves had heard the gunshots. It was smart of them to try and flush the shooters out of their hiding place.

Clint hadn't reacted, so Bucky moved to take his back. Shooting as soon as a head peaked over the stair railings.

The shot didn't connect. Worse, the newcomer had a gun of their own, and nothing between them and Clint and Bucky.

Bucky moved, shielding himself with his prosthetic arm. A bullet hit it, the pain echoing through his body in a way that seemed far-removed. Bucky never wanted to get used to the sensations he could feel through his metal hand. Not when those feelings were proof of the remnants of Lucifer's grace still running through his veins.

He kicked the gun out of the werewolf's hands. They'd been too worried about hiding behind the stairs and their grip was awkward. The second werewolf was more careful, moving around his packmate and pointing his own gun at Bucky's forehead.

“Let them go,” he asked.

He shouldn't have. The time he lost trying to save his packmate's life was enough for Clint to breach the distance between them and tackle him. The shot he loosed hit the ceiling, and Bucky's fist the first werewolf's jaw. The two of them stumbled down the stairs, caught in their momentum.

The pain from the fall had apparently been enough to trigger a shift, but Bucky didn't let the monster get close, shooting it quickly. He only had two silver bullets left in that clip, which might prove an issue.

The pureblood from before had decided to join the scuffle, and he moved _fast_. Bucky aimed, but the monster got into his space, and Bucky's shot went wide as he moved to dodge him.

Claws moved towards his throat, and Bucky dropped on his back, falling badly but with his life intact. He aimed a kick at the pureblood before rolling out of the way, narrowly avoiding his claws once again.

Bucky took his shot, and the werewolf dropped.

A cry of anguish caught his attention, making him turn towards the entrance, where a younger wolf was standing, her claws half extended in an uncontrolled shift. She lunged herself at Bucky, who could only raise his prosthetic arm as protection.

There was an odd _thwuk_ sound and a surprising lack of weight thrown against him, so Bucky dared looking up.

The young wolf was staring at a knife protruding from her chest. Her legs collapsed, and she crashed to the ground.

Bucky turned towards the stairs, where Clint was leaning against the railing, chest heaving with deep breaths.

“Silver knife?” Bucky asked, quietly impressed.

“Yeah. Asshole upstairs broke the strap off my quiver, so I improvised with what I had.”

“Thank you.”

Clint shrugged. “You're welcome. How about we go beg for some food in exchange for services rendered and leave all of this clean-up to someone else?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I said I was going to post once a week. Then didn't, because I'm a liar. (But mostly because of NaNoWriMo and being too busy writing new words to edit the ones I had already written.)  
> The whole fic has been drafted now, so hopefully this means I can ACTUALLY stick to one chapter a week from now on, but I'm not gonna make any promises because those don't turn out great for me apparently.  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> This fills my Winterhawk bingo square for "meddling best friends." Kinda.

The drive from Utah to LA was pretty quiet after the one werewolf case in Nevada. They caught a stray croat wandering not far from Ridgecrest _,_ but the main outbreak seemed to have been taken care of before they'd arrived.

Clint was rather relieved.

The werewolf hunt had left a bitter taste in his mouth. It had all gone so fast, and it hadn't seemed right. There was no reason for a pack to settle on the outskirts of a town like that and risk feeding on the local community. Definitely not if they were only going to make two victims for five wolves.

But they _had_ killed people, and they hadn't hesitated before responding with aggression when he and James had attacked.

Of course, that last part didn't mean much. Clint wasn't sure he would react any other away if he was the one suddenly getting shot at.

He should have investigated more.

Clint wasn't stupid, he knew he couldn't do things perfectly. He knew he'd done his best in a bad situation. He'd gotten a warm meal and some fresh produce out of it, and that was what he needed to focus on. His own survival first, the rest second.

The thought lodged in his throat like the smell of burned flesh, but it was a familiar feeling.

This wasn't why he hunted. He didn't do it to be thanked, to be _paid._ He did it because it was supposed to matter. Because it was supposed to help, to make the world a better place.

This hunt had felt unsatisfying, and he wasn't sure that anyone was better off now that it was over. But he couldn't afford to dwell on that.  
So he lied to himself.

Clint was glad to be going back to Los Angeles. He needed some rest. Not just in the sense of physical sleep (although he needed that as well, he always did), but also on a more emotional level. He needed to let go for a moment, to be in a place where he could let his guard down for just a little while. A place where he knew people, where people knew him.

He didn't regret bringing James along, but the man didn't exactly make him _comfortable_. Clint needed to feel comfortable.

He needed to hug his dog.

So he wasn't surprised to feel his body visibly relax as they entered LA. The city center had been severely damaged during one of the first Croatoan outbreaks, but they were several autonomous zones on the outskirts of town that had survived throughout the war and were now somewhat flourishing communities. Or what passed as flourishing in this day and age.

They had to pass through a checkpoint before entering the camp, getting tested with silver and salt, but also both holy water and holy oil. There hadn't been any angel or demon sighting in two years, but you could never be too secure. Definitely not in a place like this.

It was lucky that the guard who checked them in was someone Clint vaguely knew. He kept up a nice and steady stream of chatter that kept them from focusing too hard on why James might be keeping his left arm safely tucked away in the pocket of his hoodie. Clint might not have been able to recognize him on sight, but he knew that some people could, and it was best to avoid any kind of incident.

Especially in a place like this.

If somebody wanted to frame James as a security risk and a danger to the community, there wasn't a lot Clint would be able to do about it. He wouldn't be able to protect him, not without being branded as a threat himself. And this wasn't some no-name bar in Utah that he was almost happy to get kicked out of. This was where is _family_ lived.

Luckily, they were waved through without trouble, and the guard only seemed amused by Clint's obvious attempts at flirting.

He started breathing a whole lot easier once he was inside the perimeter.

“It's not far anymore,” he told James, although the man didn't seem to mind whether their trip lasted three hours or three days. How lost did you have to be if following a stranger along without even asking questions was the better option?

The camp was organised to allow for quick escapes, with vehicles parked in designated zones where they were easily accessible and close to potential escape routes. Clint gave his van a little tap as he picked up his bow, quiver and a bag full of clothes.

They walked the rest of the way to a community hub, settled in what used to be a private mansion.

Clint heard laughter as he approached, and he wasn't surprised when the front door opened and he found his arms suddenly full of golden fur.

“Hi Lucky,” he said, face full of dog hair. “You missed me, didn't you?”

The dog licked at his face, and Clint laughed, pushing him away and standing up once more.

Kate was leaning against the doorway and watching him. Her smile turned into a smirk as soon as she noticed his eyes on her.

“Sure your new stray won't get jealous if you keep giving Lucky all the attention?”

“What?”

The younger woman gestured with her head, and Clint turned to follow her gaze.

James. Right. Inexplicably, he felt himself blush a little.

“He's not a-” He stopped, and addressed James instead. “This is Kate. She has an attitude problem, don't listen to her.”

“ _I_ have an attitude problem? Are you sure you wanna go there, Barton, 'cause-”

She stopped in the middle of her sentence when America – her girlfriend – pushed her out of the way to come outside.

“Care to explain why the Devil has been sticking close to you for the past week?”

She was holding a tarot card in her hand, which gave Clint at least _some_ context for what she was talking about.

That was the thing when your best friend was dating a powerful psychic. You couldn't keep anything secret for very long. Or at all.

“Could we get inside before we talk about this? And, like, somewhere private?”

America had stopped talking. She had also stopped moving and was staring at James with an undecypherable expression on her face.

Clint turned towards the other man. He was standing a few feet behind him, hands in his pockets, long hair falling into his eyes. A normal guy, looking uncomfortable. That was what Clint saw and what he wanted to see.

But he knew America couldn't always choose what her Sight revealed.

“Yeah, private sounds good. Fuck, Barton, you've got some explaining to do.”

They settled in the bedroom that Kate and America shared within the house. It was definitely not meant to welcome four adult people, but they made do, Kate and America sharing the bed, Bucky taking the one chair and Clint sitting down on the floor, a few feet away from him.

America didn't beat around the bush.

“Are you actually the devil? Because tarot usually isn't _that_ literal, but your soul is fucked up in a way I have _never_ seen before.”

Clint winced.

“You can see souls?” James asked.

“Eh.” America made a _so-so_ gesture with one hand. “Glimpses. It's kind of like reading auras except... deeper. I can see parts. Not enough to properly read them, but enough to know that a bunch of things happened to yours.”

“You could say that.”

“So. The devil?”

Kate caught Clint's gaze, fingerspelling _W T F_. Clint shrugged, which just made her roll her eyes.

“Is dead. And I'm certain of that, because he was inside my body when he died.”

Kate's second _WTF_ was even more obnoxious than the first.

“So you were his vessel? It makes sense, he was an angel. Explains why your arm reeks of grace.”

Clint noticed James self-consciously crossing his arms so that the left was under the right.

“But that's not it, is it? The damage to your soul. It's not just grace. There's a... a _taint._ ”

Jame's face shut down at that comment. Clint had no idea what America was talking about, but he knew he wouldn't like it, not when it made James look like that.

To be fair, he didn't like most of the things that James had to say about his own life. Dude had had a shit run of it.

“I don't-”

“Tell me. I'm not doing this to put you on the spot or judge you, but if you want me to trust you I need to know what happened to do this.”

Her gaze brokered no argument, but James still bore it for a long minute of silence. Clint could admit to himself that he was scared. Scared of what more horrors could come out of this man's mouth.

He knew what horror was, of course. He knew pain. But the things James had been through were on a whole other level compared to his life. And sure, Clint had survived the Apocalypse. But plenty of people had. If you counted half the world as plenty. That kind of cosmic event didn't register the same way as a personal story did, however. But James was a cosmic event on a local plane and Clint knew you couldn't expect someone to come out of that unscathed. To come out of that fully human.

“Demon blood.”

For a second, it seemed like James wasn't going to elaborate, and Clint was left floundering, trying to figure out what that even _meant_.

“Demon blood is what happened to my soul. A lot of it, which I drank willingly, because it made me stronger. And because I didn't care. Because I was desperate to do the impossible, and so I might as well try the ways nobody had dared to before.” He paused, looking down at his hands, now opened on his lap. “I drank demon blood because they offered it to me, because they needed it to make my body strong enough to host Lucifer.” One more pause. “I drank demon blood because it was forced into my mouth as a child. Because apparently, this is who I was always meant to be. So that's where the taint on my soul comes from. Demon blood. Or destiny. Whatever you wanna call it.”

James crossed his arms over his chest again.

Clint stared at him.

 _As a_ child.

  
At least James' story had been enough for America to back off. At least neither she nor Kate had decided to throw them out. Or told anyone who James really was. At least they were promised beds and some food (and some chores to do in exchange.)

America still looked agitated, but Clint could understand that. He wasn't too preoccupied by it. He _was_ worried about James, and about what this interaction had meant for him.

This place was the closest Clint had to a home, and he'd been desperate to come back to it. But James didn't seem to have a place like this ( _people_ like this, because Clint couldn't care less if this camp was in Norway or Uganda, it would still be home as long as Lucky, Kate and America were there.) James didn't have a place where he could belong, however temporarily. Wherever he went, he was only greeted with aggressivity or suspicion. Clint thought he was showing him one of the things that made life worth fighting for. He now wondered if he hadn't just given James more reasons to leave.

When Kate sidled up next to him and started watching him peel potatoes without offering to help, Clint couldn't say he was surprised. He let her stew in her own silence for a while. He knew how to play this game.

“So, James.”

“James.”

“The Devil's vessel.”

“A human being who went through some really fucked up shit and also saved my life.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

“And who has now started to just... hang out with you.”

Clint rolled his eyes, putting down both knife and potato.

“And who I asked to stick around because I wanted to learn more about the Apocalypse. And because he's an amazing fighter.”

“And because he was lonely and you're a sucker for a pair of baby blues.”

“Kate, I swear to God, I have a knife right here.”

She held up her hands. “Ok, but you didn't even try to tell me I'm wrong.”

Clint sighed. “I don't know why you have to make such a big deal out of it. Both you and him. Yeah, I asked him to hang around. It's a thing people do. There's not that much more to it.”

“No it's not. Not anymore. You know that.”

“Okay. Sure. But maybe it could be. Don't you want a world in which people trust each other again?”

“Mmh. Maybe. I wasn't good at trusting people in the old world either.”

Clint bumped his fist against Kate's shoulder. “You managed. You have me now. You have America. This place.”

“Yeah. I do. But that's also kind of why I'm worried. I have all these things to protect. For a while it felt like I couldn't carry more in my heart than what my arms could hold, you know? If you don't get attached, they can't take anything away from you. But I did get attached.”

“I don't think it has to be a bad thing. We survived the Apocalypse. The goddamn Biblical Apocalypse. We can't keep expecting the next catastrophe to be around the corner.”

“I don't know, Clint. I really don't.”

She fell silent after that, and Clint went back to peeling potatoes.

“You would tell me if there was anything more going on, right? If anything was wrong. If anything was... I don't know. Getting too big for you to handle.”

“Yeah. Of course, Katie-Kate. I'd tell you.”

The conversation with Kate hadn't really been a surprise, but the one that followed the next morning certainly was.

Because when he walked into the communal dining room the next morning, he found James engaged in a staring contest with Clint's _other_ best friend.

Clint really missed cellphones. At least then Natasha didn't have an excuse to just barge in without warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun facts about this chapter: It was supposed to be chapter 3, 4 max. Then I remembered that this is a post-apocalyptic universe and they couldn't just talk to Kate and America on the phone. *facepalm* (So yes, Clint's comment at the end is really just me being pissed at my own worldbuilding.)  
> Also, I hate to find place names to set the action at the beginning of the chapter. You can't believe how happy I realised that Utah and California were so close to each other. Because I chose to set the first chapter in Utah without the vaguest idea of where it was. I'm European. Sue me.


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky didn't know what to make of the autonomous zone. It wasn't as much of a ghost town as the half-empty cities or the re-urbanized zones, but it was also a lot more permanent than the rest camps he was used to. People knew each other here. They greeted each other. They had their own things, which they stored in cupboards and drawers instead of bags.

He didn't know what to make of the place, and he didn't know what to make of the people.

They meant a lot to Clint. That much was obvious from the way Clint relaxed around them, the casual touching that peppered his interactions with Kate and the timid, bitterweet smile that kept re-appearing on his lips.

He especially didn't know what to make of America and the things she had seen in him. Learning that his addiction to demon blood was still imprinted on his soul had been painful, though ultimately unsurprising. He wasn't dependent on it anymore, not like he had been. His four years under Lucifer's control had been a very efficient form of detox. But the fact that he didn't physically need it didn't mean that the craving was entirely gone. He didn't know if it was something that _could_ go away, or if the knowledge of that kind of power flowing through his veins would forever remain a part of him.

Judging from America's pronouncement, the latter was likely.

And the thing was, that wasn't who Bucky wanted to be. It had never been who he'd wanted to be. It had been who he was, who he'd had to become. He'd walked this path because he had seen none other, not because he enjoyed the destination.

Or at least he tried to tell himself that. He tried to remember how awful it had been, how dirty it had made him feel. He tried to remember only how much he'd hated it so he wouldn't dwell on the parts of him that had _loved it_ , the parts of him that had wholly surrendered to the surge of pure energy that the blood had given him access to, that had enjoyed being strong for the sake of it, that hadn't cared about the consequences, the parts of him that had reveled in the knowledge that he had been irredeemably _broken_.

A freak.

A curse.

America had seen the stains on his soul, and in a sense it had been a relief. To hand someone the knowledge of who he truly was and let them deal with it. To wash his hands of his own nature, let others debate the worth of his life.

He had gone to bed that night with the knowledge that his existence was in someone else's hands and the rightness of it left such an overwhelming taste in his mouth he thought he would choke on it.

When he had woken up (after too short a night, because his body still hadn't gotten used to the fact that it now had to sleep again), it was to the knowledge of a presence waiting for him.

At first, he had thought it was America, that the psychic was contacting him through his mind, using her powers or what was left of his.

But there was something cold about the presence at the back of his mind. Something cold and precise, something that called to parts of his body that were his and not his at once.

He wondered if this kind of pressure was what it felt like when an angel tried to pray.  
  
He got up quietly, slipping out of the dormitory unnoticed. It wasn't hard to follow the presence to the dining room. Becoming conscious of it had seemingly amplified the signal, the way words became clearer when you started _listening_ instead of just hearing.

It was jarring to walk into the dining room and have it be fully illuminated. After the darkness of the corridors in the early hours of morning, it was even almost painful. There was only one person sitting inside, one dark silhouette to contrast with the blinding, yellow-ish light.

The first thing Bucky saw was her hair, a vibrant red color that immediately made him think of freshly spilled blood. She was dressed all in black, like she was a shadow and only _allowing_ him to see her today. On the table in front of her lay an angel blade, her fingers carefully tracing the length of it in a hypnotic back and forth.

“Hello,” the woman said, voice sounding strangely rough to Bucky's ears.

He walked slowly closer. The intrusion at the back of his mind was gone, but there was an uncomfortable energy radiating from the woman in front of him.

“Remember me?”

He didn't. Not really. Not in the way you remembered your own memories, those that had always been yours. Instead, the response her words triggered was like a wave hitting him, a physical sensation that coursed through his entire body.

Of course his first thought had been to compare her hair to the color of blood, because he could now remember the way _hers_ had stained his metal hand, the way Lucifer had spared a thought to admire the beauty of it even as he grinned down at the woman.

“ _I like you, little girl. You've got style. It would be too bad to see you go yet. But take this as a warning, okay? Don't get in my way.”_ He had punctuated these last words with a jab into the wound that had bloomed on the woman's side, and then he had just snapped his fingers, sending her away somewhere.

“ _Mmh. I wonder which of my siblings got naughty like this. You really don't get any good gossip when you're locked up in the deepest pit of hell.”_

“You're a nephilim,” Bucky said, in his own voice and not Lucifer's. This explained the strange sensation her presence caused in his head. She was half angel. There was enough grace mixed with her soul that she could somehow reach to Bucky's mind, the two of them like out of tune violins trying to find unison in a pale comparaison to what it must feel like to be connected to the Heavenly Host. “You tried to kill-”

He wasn't exactly sure how to end that sentence. _You tried to kill me once?_ But she hadn't. Not really. Bucky had just been a potential piece of collateral damage, like so many other human vessels during the War.

“Yeah. Didn't exactly work out for me, did it?” The words could have been bitter in the woman's mouth, but instead came across as a simple statement of facts. She hadn't been powerful enough then and she knew it. Today, however, was another story. She looked totally in control now, fingers still resting against the hilt of her angel blade in what was clearly a threat. “Sit down.”

She gestured to the bench in front of her, on the other side of the table. Bucky sat. Despite the tension in the air, despite the weapon lying between them, he didn't think the nephilim wanted to do him harm. If she had, she would have attacked as soon as he came in, caught him unaware. Or she would have killed him in his sleep. Instead she had let him feel her presence, had waited for him to come to her. There was no doubt in Bucky's mind that the sensation that had woken him up had been broadcasted to him. He didn't have that kind of power, not anymore. All he had were leftover crumbs of borrowed grace and the memory of blood in his mouth.

The nephilim, on the other hand, was the real deal.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I was curious. There are rumors about you, you know? People don't seem to like the fact that you're still alive. I suppose it's understandable. Humans need to feel like there's an order to the world. Like there's a Great Big Plan. And we all know that every big plan needs a villain to try and thwart it. Might as well be you.”

She was smiling as she spoke, a fake air of relaxation to her posture. Bucky remembered her face as his hand tore open her flesh. He remembered the immense pain in her eyes, but also the lack of surprise. He remembered that she hadn't screamed.

“You don't care about that,” Bucky stated. “You don't care what those people say about me. You know better. So I ask again. Why are you here?”

She tilted her head to the side. “Oh, but I'm not lying. I really was curious. You see, there's power running through the Earth again.”

Bucky froze without meaning to. He didn't know what he would do if angels or demons came back. He didn't know if he would be able to go on with the miserable existence he'd carved out for himself. He didn't know he he could resist the desire to walk up to the first demon he found, open its veins and drink until he forgot everything. The only thing he knew was that he would do anything to avoid being possessed again, that he would die before letting himself lose control of his own body like that.

“Oh no, don't worry. No more Hell nor Heaven. Our far-off siblings are still as wiped-out as they were yesterday.”

The statement didn't reassure Bucky one bit. He didn't like that she'd been able to read him so easily. He didn't like that the way she said _our_ and _siblings_ had rung truer than most of her words so far. Like that was the core of the matter: the connection between them, this vague humming just under Bucky's skin.

How lonely the nephilim must be if Bucky was she closest thing she could find to a likeness.

“Then what?”

The woman shrugged. “I'm not sure yet. I wanted to see if you knew anything.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I believe that. I had to check, though. No hard feelings.” She gave a light push to the blade still resting in front of her, making it spin.

She stared at him, not making any move to leave. Bucky didn't either. He didn't feel comfortable just walking away.

Besides, where would he have gone?

Anywhere. He could have gone anywhere. That was what he'd always done, ever since losing the one person that had felt like his true North. Pick a direction, get to walking.

But there was something keeping him here, right then.

Clint?

Clint wasn't supposed to be anyone to him. Just another hunter. One who was slightly more bearable than the usual types, one who luckily didn't want him dead, but just another hunter all the same. Bucky would feel guilty if he left the man without warning, without saying goodbye, but in the end it wouldn't mean that much to either of them. In the end, the few days they had spent together were just days, and as such were forgettable.

But Clint had shown him kindness. Clint had smiled at him and shared his food and his van and his stupid music tastes and maybe Bucky really was that lonely and desperate. Maybe Bucky didn't have anything on the nephilim in front of him, maybe he too would have gone looking for anyone and anything that shared an ounce of his essence if he had any idea how to make his powers sing.

So Bucky stayed. And the nephilim stayed. And they stared at each other for so long that Bucky started wondering if this wasn't all a dream he was having.

The thrum under his skin was still there, making him on edge. The cold energy was unmistakeably echoing with Lucifer's grace, and it brought back too many memories and sensations to Bucky's mind. At the same time, it was a lot more diffuse than what being possessed had felt like. There was something attractive about the brightness of this energy. Bucky knew the danger of it, but he still felt drawn, like a moth to a flame. This was the sort of cold that burned like fire, destructive and life-giving all at once.

Slowly, so slowly that he barely realized it, Bucky became aware of the nephilim's grace pushing against his. Of the two sources of energy being separate.

Maybe pushing wasn't the right word. It was more like they were softly rubbing against one another. And like with any two objects, the friction created sparks. Instead of a discreet hum diffused through his body, it suddenly felt like Bucky was immerged whole in a river, while at the same time being the river himself.

He clenched his left arm reflexively, disorientated by the sensation but unwilling to let it show. He had had no idea that so much of Lucifer's power was still stored within him, and wasn't sure how he felt about the nephilim knowing.

“What the fuck 'Tasha?”

The question finally broke Bucky and the nephilim out of their trance, severing the contact between their graces and leaving Bucky reeling with relief.

“Hi Clint.” The nephilim said, smiling brightly. Bucky turned around and, sure enough, Clint was standing there, looking eminently confused. Bucky suddenly realized there were a lot more people around, most of them eating or chatting with one another. Several hours must have passed without Bucky noticing. This was unacceptable. He needed to get away from the nephilim as soon as possible, to get himself back under control.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was passing by, figured I ought to come and say hi, see what gossip I could stir up.”

Clint looked from her to Bucky. “Do you... know each other?”

“We've crossed paths,” the nephilim said. “Once. Let's say he left an impression on me.”

“Natasha, stop talking in riddles. What's going on?”  
The woman – Natasha – leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in one of her hands. The gesture also had the effect of drawing attention to her angel blade, and Bucky saw Clint's eyes widen as he took the detail in.

“You're no fun. But there are too many people around to talk plainly. Should we take a walk?” She stood up without waiting for an answer, shooting Bucky a look that indicated he was meant to follow as well. Something twisted inside his stomach.

They followed her outside, walking in silence to the very outskirts of the settlement. The silence was heavy, and Clint kept shooting Bucky uncomfortable little glances.

“So, Clint, I hope you're aware that the new stray you've adopted used to be Lucifer's vessel.”

“I am, actually,” Clint replied, frowning. “Although I don't know how _you_ know that or why it would be your business.”

Natasha's expression softened. “Don't get prickly. I'm just trying to look out for you. Angel possession leaves grace behind. I can feel it inside him.”

This meant that Clint knew she was a nephilim, Bucky realized.

“That sounds... invasive.”

Natasha shrugged. “It's the angel way.”

“So you came up here because you could somehow feel the grace inside James and thought he... what? Was some evil Satan-worshipping freak who was gonna murder me?”

The nephilim raised en eyebrow. “If he'd wanted to murder you, you would have been dead long ago, Clint.”

She wasn't wrong, but the way she made that statement sent a chill down Bucky's spine. This woman knew who he was. She knew exactly _how dangerous_ he was, or at least had a pretty good idea. But she wasn't scared of him. At all. This said a lot about how powerful she must be.

“No. I came here because there's something cooking, something big, and I needed to make sure he wasn't involved before I trusted him with you.”

Natasha wasn't scared of him, but she _was_ scared of whatever it was that was coming. Bucky didn't like that one bit.

“What's going on?” Clint asked, forehead creased with worry.

“I think someone's trying to open a door to Purgatory.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have reached the point where this story ran away from me and spontaneously grew a plot. Hope you're excited about it!


	7. Chapter 7

“Purgatory? As in, waiting-room-to-Heaven Purgatory?”

Clint was extremely confused. He'd been on edge ever since catching Natasha with Bucky and the feeling hadn't subsided when he'd noticed how tense Bucky was. He loved Natasha to death, he really did, but she wasn't exactly known for her kindness to strangers. Although she had hinted that she and James were more than stranger which was... another thing that Clint didn't want to think about for too long.

Natasha shook her head. “Yes, but no. The stories don't get everything right. There's no waiting-room to get into Heaven. Either your soul goes right up there, or it goes to Hell, or it stays trapped in this world. At least that's the way it is for humans. It's the way it used to be.”

What was _used to be_ even supposed to mean in this context? Clint wanted to ask, but he knew he couldn't allow himself to be distracted. One thing at a time.

“Purgatory is another place altogether. It's where monsters go when they die. The souls that aren't worth saving but can't be turned into demons either.”

“Okay.” Clint took it in, ran it over in his mind. “Sure, what the hell, it isn't weirder than any of the lore out there. Dead monster land. Why the hell would someone want to open a door to Purgatory?”

“Who would even know how to open one?”

Clint turned towards Bucky, relieved to hear him participate in the discussion.

“That's what I'm trying to figure out,” Natasha said.

“I've been a hunter for years and a puppet for Lucifer and I didn't even know it could be opened before now. Most people aren't aware that it even exists.”

“I know. That's why I needed to talk to you. The people most likely to know about this place are those who are close to angel or demon-kind in some way. And I mean, _very_ close. I doubt low-rank demons would even know about it, and there's no longer any around to ask anyway. I'm the only nephilim still alive. It doesn't leave many options.”

Clint only had to look at James' face to realize he had come to the same conclusion as him. If Lucifer's vessel had been Natasha's first bet, then Michael's would be the second.

He worried his lower lip between his teeth.

Truth be told, he'd wanted to try and find Steve ever since James had told him about the final battle between them. Even before that, really. The man was a legend. Clint wasn't immune to that kind of aura. He didn't want to worship the guy, didn't trust an angel further than he could throw them, but there was still... _something_ , about the stories people told about him. Something attractive.

He'd been a hunter too, before the War, people said. He'd kept hunting afterwards as well, was the rumour, although Clint wasn't sure how much he could trust that. There was a lot of hearsay going around, but he hadn't met anyone who had actually interacted directly with the man. Except for James.

And that was the thing. Because James was clearly conflicted about him. He'd had two years to try and find his best friend again, but instead he was here with Clint.

There was too much history there for Clint to do as he pleased.

Natasha was looking between the two of them, and she raised an eyebrow at Clint. She was too perceptive for her own good.

“It only leaves Michael's vessel,” she stated.

Neither of the men said anything.

“You know him.” That last remark had been directed towards James because, once again, Natasha was too perceptive for her own good.

He nodded. “I do. Or I did. Before the War.”

Natasha processed the information, forehead creasing slightly. “But I'm guessing you're not in touch anymore and have no idea where he might be?”

“Sorry.”

“Not surprising. What do you think, though? Does this sound like something he would do?”

“Open a door to Purgatory? I have no idea. It depends on what the result of that would be. He wouldn't do something like this just for kicks. He's... He's a good man. He only does things if he believes in them.”

“He helped the angels, though.”

Natasha was half-angel, but Clint knew that she bore no sympathy for the species. They didn't like hers either, and Clint had learned only recently that a few had tried to kill her, before the War. During, they'd mostly tried to get her on their side, which hadn't really worked, probably partly because of the previous assassination attempts. Natasha had always been firmly on the side of humans, which is why it had taken Clint three years to realize she wasn't one.

“Because he had to,” James answered darkly. “Because it was that or letting the devil win. I had already agreed to Lucifer possessing me by the time the angels brought him back to life.”

Natasha didn't ask about why James had said yes, and Clint was grateful for that.

“So he has a moral compass. Which means he has a motive. Difficult to know what that might be with what little information we have on Purgatory in the first place.”

“Which means he either knows more than us, or someone else does.”

“Mmh. The ever elusive _someone else_.”

“I'm guessing we're going to have to keep an eye on this?” Clint piped in. After all, Natasha hadn't needed to include Clint in the conversation. She could have spoken about all of this with James while he was still asleep and have been on her way by now. If she had waited for him, it must have been deliberate.

Natasha smiled. “I think it would be best. Wherever this is going, it's going to make waves in the monster world, I'm pretty sure. Having a few hunters be aware of the situation beforehand is probably for the best.”

“I'm guessing we're keeping this pretty quiet for now?”

“I think that would be best. No need to send everyone in a panic when we have no idea what the situation is actually like. Everyone's already twitchy enough these days.”

“Right.”

“So; keep your heads up and your ears on. Don't go in too deep, but if someone looks like they're in the know... We might as well ask them a few polite questions. I'm gonna keep digging. Look for Michael's vessel.”

“You sure you don't want help with that?” Clint wasn't sure if it was a good idea to ask, wasn't sure what James would do if Natasha said yes, but at the same time he couldn't help his curiosity.

Natasha smiled at him knowingly, but shook her head. “Nah. I'll have a much easier time finding him than you would, anyway.” She wiggled her fingers. “You know, superpowers and all.”

Clint could see right through her attempt at levity. They were both acting like it wasn't a big deal, but the reveal of Natasha's nephilim powers had almost ruined their friendship. They had known each other and had been fighting together for three years by that time, trying to survive against all odds when they were at the mercy of weather catastrophes and croatoan outbreaks, as well as at risk of finding themselves on an angel VS demon battlefield at any moment.

During all of that time, Clint had thought that he was fighting alongside another human, and he'd operated according to that script. Sure, there had been times when Natasha disappeared, running off gods-knew-where for days without saying anything and without offering an explanation on her return, but Clint had let her be. He'd trusted her, because in times of War you either trusted the people around you or you ended up dying alone.

And then one day, as they'd been helping moving a shelter camp away from the latest disaster zone, Natasha had stopped walking, looked up to the sky, and declared the war over.

And that's how Clint had learned that she'd been able to sense the angels all this time. That's how he'd learned that she wasn't human. That's how he'd learn that the reason she never got severly injured wasn't that she was just that good of a fighter, it was that she had healing powers.

Clint got injured. He'd almost died dozens of time throughout the war. He fought tooth and nail to get to take another breath the next day, and yes, Natasha had been there for him, but when he'd learned of all she could do, he couldn't help but feel like she could have done _more_.

And Natasha had explained that she couldn't use her powers without attracting angelic attention and bringing it down on everyone around her. She'd explained that she'd _tried_ , but that she wasn't strong enough.

And Clint had listened, but the only thought ringing through his head was that that was too big a secret to hide during a war like this and that she should have _told_ him.

He shouted at her and he told her to get gone, and if she'd listened to him, that might have been the end of their friendship.

But she'd stayed. She'd grabbed her bags again and had gone back to work because the shelter camp still needed to be moved, and she'd stayed. With them. With the humans, because that was the side she'd chosen a long time ago, and she wasn't about to abandon them now.

And the truth was... she'd been there. She'd hidden things and she hadn't shown her true powers, but she'd still been there. She'd saved his life multiple times, and she was his friend.

No matter _what else_ she was, she was his friend.

And so Clint had forgiven her.

He'd always had a soft spot for other people who had no one else left in the world.

They went back to the main residences after their conversation. Natasha actually went in to say hi to Kate and Natasha, which was surprisingly social of her. Clint knew Kate from before the war, and Natasha and her had crossed paths a few times since then, mostly when Clint was around, but Natasha wasn't the kind of person who made friends easily. She'd been in a pretty dire situation when she'd met Clint, which explained how she'd gotten close to him in the first place.

(By pretty dire situation, Clint meant that she'd been nearly bleeding out from a wound in her side. It was the only time that Clint had seen her sport anything more than the lightest of injuries.)

Then they said their goodbyes.

Clint hugged Natasha close to his chest, as he always did. He was much too aware of how quickly he could lose her, how quickly anyone could be lost in this life. Natasha might be less at risk than the average human, especially now that angels and demons weren't around anymore, but she wasn't immortal. And he didn't like the idea that there was a new threat on the horizon, something big enough to make _Natasha_ worry and ask for his help. He didn't like the fact that she was going to be looking into it on her own.

He and James stayed at the LA autonomous zone for one more day. Clint would have stayed longer. He'd missed Kate and he'd missed his dog, and taking him on four different walks around the camp wasn't enough to satiate that. But he could see that James was getting twitchy, with so many people around. He was always lingering on the edge of the camp when he could, avoiding people as much as was possible without arousing undue suspicion.

So they left the next day. Kate and America received the same lingering hug as Natasha, and Lucky got cuddled for even longer than that. America sent them off with a warning to stay safe. She'd done a few tarot readings that afternoon, as she always did before sending Clint on his way. The cards helped clarify her intuition, and were sometimes enough to trigger a vision, making it much easier for Clint to know where to go to find his next hunt, where he was needed most. But everything America had seen had stayed pretty vague this time. She was still drawing Clint and Bucky's cards close together (Clint, she had explained a while ago, tended to be represented by the Seven of Sword in reversed position. She had always refused to explain why) and there was an air of foreboding hanging around her readings, but nothing that she could pinpoint more precisely.

Clint thanked her anyway, joking that he was surprised “a vague air of foreboding” wasn't his trademark by now. Kate had punched him for that joke and, yeah, he could understand why. It hadn't really been funny.

He and James got back into the van, and they drove off. Again. Now with more things to worry about.

Strangely, it always seemed to be more. Never less.

Clint wouldn't be that lucky.

“You could go back, you know.”

“Mmh?” Clint let himself be dragged out of his own thoughts.

“To the camp. You could go back. Those people, they're... your family. You could go back to them. You have a home there. Why not stay?”

“Well, you've heard America. Apparently the fates have decided that we are to stick together for a little while. Who am I to go against that?”

“I'm not kidding, Clint. At some point you're going to have to leave me behind.”

“Are we going to have this conversation literally every week? I don't want to. There's no reason to split up now. If you want to leave on your own, fine. You've had plenty of opportunities to do so. But I don't see what you think you'll gain from making me kick you out.”

That seemed to quiet the other man, at least for a little while. Clint focused again on driving.

“Why aren't you staying?” James asked.

And yeah, that was the crux of the matter, wasn't it? It was propbably what he'd been trying to ask from the start, except he hadn't known how to.

“I love them. Kate and America, and Nat, when she's there. I really do. I'm just not cut out for community living. Not like they are.. I'd go stir-crazy after a week.”

“You mean you're scared.”

“Yeah. Or that. If you want to be blunt about it. I've never had a home, okay? Not a real one. I had a house I was terrified to go back to, first because my dad was constantly drunk, then because our foster-parents didn't give a crap about us. Then I ran away to the fucking circus, so I'll let you guess how that was on the homey front. _Then_ I became a criminal for hire to survive, almost got killed by a rugaru, and started hunting. It's become what I do, it's all I have. It's what I'm good at. Is it a cliché to say that I'm a drifter and that this piece of junk of a van is my only home?”

He took a deep breath, trying to keep away the bitterness that always rose up when he thought again about his family and his childhood. “Then there was the end of the world. And I get that people are trying to rebuild, I really do. Those kinds of communities are great. And Kate and America definitely deserve a place they can call theirs. I was... I wasn't feeling great about it, at first. Kate's a damn good hunter, and America's powers can be really freaking useful. They're a good ally to have in this fight, and I thought they belonged out here with me. 'In the field', or something. But they didn't sign up for a life of always being in danger. They deserve not to feel like they're always running. And they're still doing some pretty good work. They're there for their community, and for me, for other people who pass through. But the thing is... They can imagine where this is going. They have an idea of what they want this world to become.”

“And you don't?” James asked. His voice was soft, quiet. _Rich,_ Clint could have described it. There was a weight to it that always settled something in his bones. Kate kept joking about him adopting strays (her included) but maybe there was something to it. The truth was, Clint felt a little more like himself when he had another person by his side.

“I guess I don't, no. This world is all I've ever known. If not _this_ world, a variation on it. By which I mean that the main theme in my life has always been survival. I don't think I really know what to wish for beyond that.”

James stayed quiet for a while after that, and Clint took the opportunity to switch the music, replacing Taylor Swift with an old Suzanne Vega best-of.

“Why are you still here, then?”

“What do you mean?” Clint had a suspicion of where the other man was going, but he was't about to contemplate something so bleak without a good reason.

“If you don't see anything that's worth hoping for, why are you still here? Alive? Why are you still fighting? You're a hunter. You must believe that you're doing something good?”

Clint shrugged. “I told you. This is what I can do. Don't know how much good I'm doing, but it's not doing any bad at least.”

“But why, then?”

Clint sighed, resigned. He was definitely not prepared for such existential questions. How he wished for a cup of coffee.

“Because I don't believe there's anything else worth doing. What would letting myself die mean? Hell, heaven? They're just... they're not _real._ Not in the sense that this is real. They're just receptacles for souls, aren't they? Centuries of torture or centuries lost in your own memories. That's the choice you get to make. Or staying stuck as a ghost, I guess, but that's even worse because then you end up losing yourself. The truth is, there's nothing that's as real as living. So I might as well keep doing that.”

“That's not much to go on.”

Clint shrugged. “I think it's plenty. Living is... it's everything, you know? The good and the bad and the mundane shit. It's all of that. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it's great, but if you want to experience _any_ of it in a way that holds meaning, you've gotta be alive to do it.”

It was Clint's turn to stay quiet for a while. The truth was, he hadn't thought about it too hard. He kept going because he had to. That was it.

“Besides, isn't there great satisfaction to be found in spiting everyone who has ever tried to kill you by just standing back up and keep on pissing off the world?”

He turned his head just a little as he said that, happy to find a small smile on Jame's face.

Clint was glad that the older man hadn't ditched him yet. He was glad that he hadn't ditched _life_ yet. There was something about him, about the fragility of his façade and the strength of his core, about the softness hidden behind detachment, about the way he raised an eyebrow at Clint for every one of his bad habits, but never mocked him for them.

 _That_ was part of the life that Clint still wanted to experience, despite everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Clint? What's this? *holds up the huge crush that he's forming*


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky only really noticed that something was wrong when Clint asked him to drive. They'd been traveling together for two weeks by then, and Clint hadn't once let Bucky touch the wheel. They were in no hurry after all, so when Clint got tired he just stopped somewhere, and they took a break. Clint was fond of taking naps, which was apparently one of the reasons he was happy to let Bucky stick around with him. It meant he had someone to keep watch when he slept.

Bucky didn't mind. He didn't have anywhere to go or anything to do, and cleaning his weapons while Clint slept in the backseat wasn't a worse occupation than any other.

But that morning, as they were heading towards Des Moines following rumors of either a vengeful spirit or a cursed object killing people in the area, Clint packed up the leftovers from their breakfast, poured the last of their boiled water into his canteen, and then handed Bucky the keys to the van.

Bucky stared at the unassuming objects resting in Clint's palm, not really sure how he was supposed to react.

“You can drive, right?” Clint asked.

Bucky nodded.

“Then I trust you to take care of Old Thing until we reach the city.”

“Are you okay?”

Clint shrugged. “Been better. Didn't sleep well. I'll be fine, I'm just not really up for driving. Need to rest my eyes a little. It's only a few hours' drive anyway.”

Bucky stared at Clint. Now that he knew how to look for it, he could see signs of exhaustion everywhere in Clint's body. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his posture was a little slumped. He shook the keys in Bucky's face until he took them, and Bucky also noticed a jittery quality to his movements.

Clint had said he hadn't slept well, but it looked like he hadn't slept at all.

They climbed into the van, and Bucky had to spend a minute fiddling with the seat and the rearview mirror to get everything adjusted to his size. It made Clint snicker, so at least the other man hadn't lost his shitty sense of humor.

(Bucky wasn't short, okay? Clint was just absurdly tall. Those were two very different things.)

He kept the radio off, and for once Clint didn't protest, slumping in his seat and closing his eyes as soon as Bucky managed to get the van into gear and start driving. Bucky found himself jittery as well, although not in the same way as Clint. He realised he wasn't used to the silence anymore. That it had started to feel overwhelming instead of comforting.

(Lucifer had been unexpectedly chatty, unexpectedly fond of reminding Bucky of his own existence, and it's not like Bucky had been able to block off his ears when the devil had been speaking inside his mind. For the longest time, Bucky had enjoyed quietness as the most sacred type of blessing.)

But silence didn't fit Clint. The man was a maelstrom. He wasn't at home in this quiet, and so Bucky was assaulted by the sense that something was wrong.

He kept shooting Clint careful glances even as he drove, trying to guess whether the blond had managed to fall asleep or not. With Clint's back turned towards him, it was impossible to tell.

The thing in Des Moines turned out to be a ghost, one capable of possession and who had apparently been holding onto the last hunter that had come after it for quite a while. The woman fell to her knees as soon as they ejected the ghost from her, tears streaming down her face. Clint tried to comfort her even as they looked for a place they could easily ward so that they could try and figure out who the ghost was.

The thing with ghosts was that there were now a lot of them. Of all the people who had died during the Apocalypse, not many of them had gone peacefully. And those that had gone directly at the hands of demons or angels hadn't really been keen to follow their Reaper to the promise of Heaven or Hell. Go figure.

It had also gotten a hell of a lot harder to identify who the ghost was and where their body might be. Hunters had done their best, once they'd realized that this could become a problem, to spread the word around and have people cremated as much as was possible. But fires weren't great for people who were trying to stay hidden from powerful armies or from packs of croats.

More often than not, there wasn't much of a choice. If it came between taking care of a body properly or saving their own life, post people picked the second. Which meant bodies decomposing in plain sight or behind bushed, or being buried in shallow, unmarked graves.

It meant it was really complicated to find bones to salt and burn to put the spirits to rest.

Luckily, once she'd come to a little more, the other hunter was a lot of help. There had been a croatoan outbreak in town three years ago, late enough in the war that people knew how to handle the situation. All the people infected had been cordoned off in one area of the town and shot dead. But no one had known where the infection had come from, and the risk that there was even one other croat wandering in the area who might make the entire situation repeat itself was too great for the townsfolk to light a pyre that would alert anyone to their presence. So they'd digged a mass grave, the next best thing in this situation.

“So you figure that ghost is one of the people buried there.”

The hunter nodded. “I'm fairly sure. When it was it me it felt... feral. Bloodthirsty. I think the soul in there is still under the influence of the virus.”

Clint and Bucky both looked at each other. That wasn't good news.

The disease that had been dubbed “Croatoan Virus” was an invention of Hell, spread with the help of the Horseman Pestilence. It infected people through their blood, affecting their mind until all of their thoughts were focused on further spreading the virus. Introduced early on during the Apocalypse, it had made millions of casualties worldwide, and still hadn't been completely eliminated. But the idea that the virus affected people so deeply as to change the nature of their very soul, continuing to control them even in death... This meant that those people had been robbed of more than their minds and their lives.

It didn't change anything. Croats still needed to be killed, they were still dangerous to the few human survivors of the War. But it was still a blow to know that none of these souls had had a chance to go to Heaven.

At the same time, Bucky contemplated, it made a terrible sort of sense. Souls contained energy. More souls in Heaven meant the possibility of them being weaponized against Hell. Better to make sure that nobody could put their hand on that power. Better ruin them from the get-go.

They let the other hunter – Janiece - rest for a short while, hidden in an old power shed they'd barricaded with salt lines. It took ten minutes for her to stop shaking and for her breathing to come back to normal. She kept staring at her hands, flexing her fingers again and again.

Bucky remembered doing the same when he had woken up after the battle in Lawrence, Kansas. When Lucifer had finally left his body. He had needed to remind himself that he was in control.

Bucky would have bet what was left of the rabbit they'd hunted yesterday that this wasn't Janiece's first possession. This was a woman that had promised herself that she wouldn't ever lost control in this way again, and that had seen how wrong it was to think you could keep such promises to yourself.

“I'm okay,” she finally said, unfurling from her spot on the ground.

Clint nodded, and picked up what he could of the rock salt he'd laid down. Never waste any of your ressources.

Janiece led them to the mass grave. It was easy enough to find. The place wasn't marked, and nature had slowly started taking over again, but you could still clearly make out the whole area where the earth had been turned up. Clint and Bucky had picked up their shovels from the van on the way. Janiece had lost hers somewhere during the days she'd spent under the ghost's influence.

Bucky didn't feel comfortable with letting Janiece be the one to keep lookout with one of their shotguns full of salt rounds. She was too shaky, too nervous. A mistake was too easily made in a situation like this.

At the same time, giving her a shovel wouldn't make too much sense either. They needed to burn these bodies as quickly as possible, and she didn't seem in any state to do much physical activity. So he bit his tongue, handed her the shotgun and started digging, focusing on the task ahead of him and not on anything else.

They got a good hour of digging done before the ghost caught onto them. The temperature suddenly dropped. Bucky could see that Janiece was shaking, even as she kept careful watch, hoping to catch the ghost right as it appeared.

She shouted, fired a round, and Bucky turned his head quickly enough to see the smoky effect of a ghost dissipating. They now had company.

If this ghost was capable of possession, a salt round wasn't going to keep it away for very long. At least they knew it would probably aim for Janiece again. She was the weakest one right now, already shaken up by her earlier round at the spirit's puppet.

At least she was supposed to be.

Instead of reappearing close to Janiece like they had all expected it to, the ghost materialized right besides Clint, raising a hand to the blond's forehead.

He should have been able to dodge it, or at least try to, but didn't get the time. The ghost slipped inside of him like it was nothing, and turned towards Bucky and Janiece with a determined grin on his face.

Janiece raised her shotgun.

“Don't shoot!” Bucky shouted. She stared at him in confusion, but obeyed the order.

They couldn't afford for Clint to be injured. Not when they needed him to dig that grave, not when their supplies were getting so low. Bucky didn't want to see Clint injured. He didn't want Clint to wake up from the nightmare of possession to find his own blood on his hands. But he needed to do something. He couldn't imagine that Clint would be any happier if he found their blood on his hands when he woke up.

The ghost tested its grip on the handle of the shovel.

At least there was that: the Croatoan virus spread through blood, which meant the ghost would probably go for hand to hand combat instead of simply shooting the other two hunters on sight.

At least Bucky hoped so. After all, even if some instinct from the virus remained, it wasn't as if the ghost could spread his own blood. And if people could become infected through ghost possession, Bucky was pretty sure it would have become a problem much earlier and that they would have heard about it.

He threw Janiece his shovel. “Keep digging. As long as I don't call for you, you just keep on digging.”

Bucky decided he liked Janiece. She didn't ask questions when she didn't need to, didn't waste their time by call his decisions into doubt. She'd probably been army at one point, or maybe trained in one of the many militias that had sprouted up during the War.

Bucky picked up one of the salt rounds he kept in one of his many pockets, as well as an iron knife. While Clint's body approached, Bucky cracked the salt round open, locking it between his palm and his thumb to keep any salt from spilling.

The ghost lunged towards him, shovel raised, and Bucky blocked the blow with his metal arm. Not the smartest idea, not with Janiece around, but the situation was too desperate for him to be careful. Besides, if it came to that, he could handle Janiece later.

Bucky raised his knife, and pressed the side of it against Clint's hand. As he had hoped, the contact with pure iron was enough to make the ghost wince and lighten his grip on the shovel.

Bucky knee-kicked Clint in the stomach, making him let go completely and stumble backwards. He followed the move by pressing his knife against the blond's skin, still careful to use only the side and not the edge of it. Quickly, he slipped the open salt round to the hand that was holding the knife, using his prosthetic one to pull Clint's head backward by his hair.

Then it was only a matter of forcing him to open his mouth and pouring the salt into it. The ghost let out a shrieking noise, jerking out of Clint's body and materialising just behind it.

Bucky raised his knife.

“Janiece!”

“On it!” The woman shouted back. It wasn't five seconds before a shot rang out and the ghost disappeared again.

Bucky relaxed, but only slightly. He turned towards Clint, noticing the black goo of ectoplasm coming out of one of his ears. Clint slowly blinked his eyes open.

“Come on, you gotta move. The ghost is after you, so you're gonna need to defend yourself while we dig.”

Clint's eyes widened, but he got himself up and took the iron knife from Bucky's hand. When it looked like he was holding himself up okay, Bucky shouted for Janiece's shotgun, which he handed Clint.

The blond only nodded in thanks, but at least he quickly reloaded some salt rounds and took up a defensive stance.

It looked like he could handle himself, so Bucky went back to digging.

Their work became harder and harder as the ghost got progressively more pissed off, but Clint managed to hold it off well enough until they'd finally uncovered the last of the bodies.

Bucky and Janiece threw a can of salt over them and what they could spare as kindling before putting fire to the whole pit.

It took a while for the flames to finally engulf the right body, but the ghost at last went up in smoke.

Clint immediately sat himself down on the ground.

“Are you okay?” Bucky shouted. When Clint didn't answer, he apologized to Janiece and went over to him. “Clint?”

The hunter only looked up when Bucky was standing right in front of him.

“Are you okay?”

Clint made a grimace, then moved his hands up to his ears. He picked up his earing aids, showing how both of them were covered in ectoplasm.

“Sorry. I've got spares and the tools to repair them in the van, but for now I'm stuck with reading lips.”

Bucky crouched down, putting himself at the same level as Clint's face so that the other man didn't have to crane his neck to watch him. “Are you okay?”

Clint shrugged. “Been better. My mouth tastes like I've drunk the whole sea. Also I think I bruised a rib.”

Bucky decided it would be of no help for him to mention that the bruised rib was probably his fault. “Why did the ghost go after you?”

It shouldn't have been that easy for it to possess him. That kind of thing required a lot of power, especially for a spirit as young as this one. That was why ghosts usually possessed people in their moments of weakness or of great emotional turmoil.

“I don't know. I'm tired. Or maybe he just felt that I was distracted.”

Clint looked away, and Bucky figured that meant the conversation was over. At least for now.

Neither of them could afford to be distracted, and if that was really what had happened, he would have to discuss it with Clint a lot more seriously. They'd gotten out of this okay, but something much worse could have easily happened, to them or to Janiece. It wasn't like Clint not to care about that.

They waited around for the fire to die down. It wasn't the safest place to be, considering the smoke was as likely to attract friends as foes, but none of them wanted to take the risk of leaving the flames unsupervised and have them spread to the surrounding area. At the same time, there was no use bothering to close up the grave. It was safer to leave it open, so that other hunters would know these bodies had been burned. If another ghost started acting up in the area, it would help everyone to know that this wasn't the place to look for a culprit.

As well as the fire, Bucky was careful to keep an eye on Clint. The other man seemed normal and attentive enough, but Bucky was worried.

It was a strange sensation, that kind of concern. One caused not by danger to his own life, not by any world-endangering threat, but simply by the fact that he cared about someone.

Watching the other hunter's face bathed by the slowly-dying flames, Bucky realised that he was getting distracted.

That would be a threat to his survival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on distracted is a euphemism for "in love" sorry not sorry. (JK, I don't think Bucky is there /quite/ yet.)
> 
> This isn't my favorite chapter, and you can tell that it's a transition point but... eh. I did my best. Transitions are hard.


	9. Chapter 9

Clint hated burning bodies. He hated the smell and he hated the reminder of his mortality and he hated how many awful memories the fire always brought up for him.

Mostly, he hated the smell.

Hunters' funerals were the worst, because then the bodies were fresh and the stench of the burning flesh overwhelmed the air. This wasn't as bad, but it still wasn't _nice_.

Clint might not have felt as whiny as he was right now if he wasn't also so _tired_. The smoke wasn't helping, making him feel like he was short on breath. He desperately needed to sleep, and he knew that James had noticed something was up.

Of course he had noticed, Clint had almost gotten the two of them and Janiece killed.

Clint knew there was a talk coming. He also knew he _really_ didn't want to have to talk about this. He didn't like to admit weakness. Not to strangers, not to friends. Not even to himself.

Especially not to himself.

It hadn't gotten this bad in a long time, and Clint had thought that maybe he was finally free of it. But it had been three days since he'd caught more than a couple hours of fitful sleep a night, and he was quickly approaching the end of his rope.

When the flames had finally died down enough that it was safe to leave, Clint offered Janiece a ride. The woman had been possessed for days, she was alone, without any supplies, and the least they could do was drive her to the nearest rest camp. Most of those places had policies in place that allowed people to work for their food and shelter if they didn't have anything to trade in for a night's rest.

Besides, if she accepted the offer, Janiece would act as a nice buffer between James and Clint, giving the latter some more blessed time to figure out what he was going to tell the other man.

It wasn't like PTSD was an uncommon thing these days. It was a lot less rare than a good therapist. And Clint knew there was no shame in struggling with mental health, except of course that knowing that didn't prevent him from drowning in the stuff.

It was just... He didn't like not being in control. He didn't want to have to admit that he wasn't in control. He didn't want to have to admit to his own weakness, didn't want James to judge him.

He didn't want to seem like he was making excuses.

So many people had had it worse than him, _still_ had it worse than him. And they kept on going. _Hell_ , just look at James. He'd been possessed for years on end, he'd lost his best friends and been manipulated by the armies of hell, and he was still standing. He was probably the best fighter that Clint had ever seen besides Natasha, but he was also _human_ , so that comparaison was more in his favor than anything else.

How could Clint look him in the eye and tell him that he needed a break because all of that stuff about Purgatory had brought up some bad memories in him and he hadn't been able to rest properly since leaving LA?

Probably by doing just that. Clint _knew_ that was what he had to do. He just really, _really_ didn't want to.

Clint drove on the way to the rest camp. Probably a bad idea, but at least it kept his mind off things a little. Besides, his short stint as a ghost puppet had woken him up a great deal.

He hadn't taken the time to fix his hearing aids, probably wouldn't have been able to considering his hands tended to shake when he was too tired. So he'd put his spare ones in. They did the job, but tended not to be good at filtering between different noise sources. Which meant no music in the car.

It was a quiet and frankly rather depressing drive. Janiece made herself small in the back seat, looking out the window and saying nothing. Clint figured the truth of what had happened was finally hitting her, now that the adrenaline from the fight had worn off. He wondered if there had been someone else with her when she'd been possessed. It was pretty rare to see people hunting alone. Too dangerous.

But Clint didn't ask. He didn't want to know how much she'd lost. He'd heard that story too many times before, and he was in no emotional shape to listen to it again. It probably made him selfish, but well. It wasn't as if Janiece seemed eager to share either.

She did thank them profusely when they finally dropped her off. They stayed at the rest camp long enough to cook themselves some food, but it was early in the afternoon, so when someone approached them about a potential hunt in one of the re-urbanized area a few hours away, they decided they might as well hit the road again.

And so Clint had to finally stop avoiding the conversation.

James didn't even let him get _inside_ the van before starting. Instead, he stopped Clint as he was about to head for the driver's side.

“Don't you think I'd better drive?”

Clint played it cool. He knew it was useless, but he couldn't help it. He just felt that prickly aboutthe entire situation. “I mean, if you want to. I've got no strong feelings either way.”

James didn't respond. Instead, he just _looked_ at Clint. Very intensely. It was the worst kind of response. Clint didn't like silence. It made him nervous, and he babbled when he was nervous. Except that right then he was trying _not to talk_ , so this really wasn't good.

“The old thing's got a temperament, but you handled her just fine this morning, so I guess I can trust you.” He fished out the keys from his pocket. “Here you go.”

James took the keys from his fingers, but also caught Clint's wrist before he could pull away. “We need to talk.”

“Sure. That's fine. I'm talking. It's usually you who sticks to the silent brooding and stuff. Or well, I guess I did some of that earlier too, but talking verbally when I don't have my hearing aids in is a pain. Do you know ASL? You should learn ASL. It's very useful.”

“Clint.”

There was something in the way that James said his name that stopped all of Clint's thoughts dead in their tracks. It reminded him of Natasha every time she was done with his bullshit. Clint could have gotten mad about it, could have argued that he didn't need to be treated like a child, but instead Bucky's stern tone just made him realize that James... cared. The fight went out of him in one breath.

“Sorry. I just. I don't really want to talk about it.”

James raised an eyebrow, but he also let go of Clint's wrist. He moved towards the van, so Clint followed, stepping into the passenger side.

Unlike what Clint had thought, James immediately started driving, and for a while there was only silence. The music was still off, and Clint didn't dare turn it on and draw attention to himself.

After several long minutes, James finally spoke again.

“You haven't been sleeping well.”

Clint didn't look at him, keeping his gaze fixed on the scenery outside. James' gaze was just too... intense, sometimes. When he was focused on something.

“Not really.”

“Not really? You asked me to drive this morning. Because you hadn't slept.”

“I didn't think it would be a problem. I thought just resting in the car would be enough. It wasn't supposed to be a problem. Not like I could have known the ghost was possessing people.”

“You should have told me. If you're not feeling at 100%, I need to know about it. It doesn't matter what we're hunting. I need to know so I can look out for-”

“I don't need someone to protect me, okay? I'm fine. I'm just fucking _tired_. It's not a big deal. I messed up today, sure, but you're not my babysitter and I don't need to tell you everything about me and I can take care of my-fucking-self.”

Clint immediately hated himself for the way he'd spoken. James hadn't deserved any of that. He was entirely right and Clint was just making everything worse by proving how much of a mess he was.

“I used to sleep in bouts of 2 hours,” James said after more silence had passed. “A full sleep cycle. I would do that three times a day, keep moving between cycles. It was the only way that felt safe.”

This was exactly what Clint had been trying to avoid. Thinking about James being so scared was horryfing. The man was so strong. If _he_ was scared, how was Clint supposed to keep going? He didn't want to know this. He was aware that James was just trying to help by sharing his story, but Clint _really didn't want to know this_.

“Sleeping for longer than that felt like I was losing time. I knew Lucifer was dead, I did, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it hadn't been real, that it all was just-

“Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there,” Clint said, finally turning towards James again. To his credit, the other man was keeping his eyes on the road. Clint was glad. His van might be old and busted, but that didn't mean they could afford to crash it. “I absolutely do not need to hear this, okay? This is not a fucking intervention. I already admitted that I messed up today. And I'm sorry about that. I put you and Janiece in danger and I'm _sorry_. It shouldn't have happened and it won't happen again. End of story.”

“I was just trying-”

“Just trying to help. I get it. The thing is, it doesn't help. We all have awful stories, okay? And yours is worse than most. And if you need to talk about it, I'll listen, but not now. Not if you're doing it for me and every word feels like you're pulling teeth out of your own mouth, you know?”

James frowned. “I wasn't-”

“You kind of were. It's okay. It's sweet. But this isn't that kind of problem, okay? I don't feel sad or alone or whatever. I don't need to know that it gets better. I just need to sleep. It's just something that happens sometimes. It will pass.”

“It just seemed like-” James stopped himself before finishing his sentence. Clint was grateful for it. It had sounded very much like he'd been about to ask whether Clint's insomnia was connected to Natasha's visit a few days earlier.

And, yes, probably it was. He'd been feeling restless and anxious ever since they'd left LA.

The thing was, the implications of Natasha asking for his help had only really sunk in after she'd left. He was still used to the idea that she needed him as much as he needed her, even if that wasn't true. In truth, he still had no idea how powerful she was, and the fact that that Purgatory stuff had her so worried had made him panic a little.

Clint was just a guy after all.

Listening to James' stories about his time as Lucifer's vessel had really rubbed that in. Clint wasn't made to play a part in those cosmic kinds of threat. He wasn't made to battle angels, even less archangels, and certainly not hordes of demons. One or two of them? Sure. He'd done that back in the days. Still knew his Latin exorcism by heart. But the armies that started showing up during the War? Nope. Much too big for him to deal with.

His main skillset was that he was good at staying alive. For someone who got injured as often as he did, he was surprisingly hard to kill.

And it was a good skillset to have. One he'd been able to put to use in a way that helped people. From the point of view of humans, the regular ones, the War hadn't been as much something they had fought in as an event that they had survived.

But now... If what Natasha had said was true, humans would be smack in the middle of it when the gates to Purgatory opened. And so they were supposed to bring the fight there, to attack first, or at least figure out enough that they could stop it.

This was a different thing altogether, and Clint had agreed to help Natasha because _of course he would_ , of course he would help her and of course he would fight, but he felt entirely out of his depth and frankly terrified.

So maybe this all had something to do with why he couldn't sleep. _Maybe_.

“It's fine if you don't want to speak about it.” James was the one to once again break the silence. And who knew that all it took to make him talk was for Clint to shut up? Maybe he should try that more often. (He probably wouldn't.) “But I do need you to tell me when something's wrong. Not because you can't handle yourself, but because it means that _I_ need to handle myself differently. And this is not... I'm not saying that I can't trust you to have my back. I do trust you. When you're not hiding things that could put us _both_ in danger.”

He was being so _reasonable_ about the whole thing, it was absolutely infuriating. But Clint knew that responding with anger now would be doing the both of them a disservice. So he took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down and act rationally instead of letting his vulnerability dictate his reaction. It wasn't easy.

“I'm gonna try. I know it wasn't a good idea not to say anything, and I'm gonna try not to do it again in the future. But I don't want to talk about it. It's just some trouble sleeping. It won't get better by sobbing it out, okay?”

“Okay.”

Silence settled once more. James was a good driver. Smooth. It was easy for Clint to let his mind spread out and unravel until he approached a state that could almost be called rest.

“Sorry I was so harsh. I just... I hate it when I get like this. I feel on edge. I hate the way it makes me feel and I hate how I lash out in return. And I did lash out. You didn't deserve that.” He took a deep breath, still looking at the road instead of James. “I just hate feeling this vulnerable. Out of control. I hate it. And when I look at you and all you've been through... I don't know. I hate that I can break down so easily, because of something as simple as _not sleeping_. That's why I didn't want to say anything. Which isn't an excuse, I know that, but well. At least it's an explanation.”

James didn't reply. Clint was glad for that as well. He wasn't sure what he would have done with James' forgiveness if he had gotten it.

The other man insisted they stop at a rest camp that night, not _actually_ saying it was for Clint's sake even though they both knew it. He didn't argue. It would have been too much of a cliché to say he was _too tired_ to argue. You could never be too tired to argue, that just wasn't possible. Clint was pretty sure he would still be arguing with people on his deathbed.

He just thought James deserved for him to shut up. For once. As a treat. Because he'd been nice and polite and hadn't pried. Totally not because Clint was exhausted.

As he slipped into bed, Clint thought that maybe he _should_ have protested. He thought that if he didn't manage to fall asleep tonight they would have wasted valuable trade ressources for nothing. Hunting might be a more respectable profession than before, but it wasn't like anybody was rich enough to hand out freebies for every vampire head one brought back, so it still couldn't pay the bill.

After staring at the back of his eyelids for some long minutes, Clint turned to his side. He waited. He turned to his other side.

James was sleeping in the bed next to him, in a perfectly straight position on his back. It was kind of freaky.

But then Clint noticed that he could see his chest move with the movement of his breaths. A rush of relief ran over Clint.

Relief?

He realized that James' position made him look like he was dead. That was what had been making him uneasy about it.

Clint also realized that he really didn't want James to be dead.

Clint watched him breathe for a moment longer. Unconsciously, he started matching the rhythm of his own breaths to that of James's. Slowly, very slowly, he felt drowsiness take over his body.

As he closed his eyes, Clint thought that he really wanted to be alive along with James.

It was a nice thought to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fills my bingo square for "insomnia"!
> 
> Not-so-fun fact: my chronic insomnia made a comeback yesterday after I had started editing this chapter. Just to make me fully aware of how much self-projecting goes on in all of my writing lmao.
> 
> (Don't worry, I'm okay, it wasn't too bad and I have meds to take if it starts getting worse again <3 I will NOT let it get to 4 days on barely any sleep like Clint. Been there, done that, would not recommend, would not do again.)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning: this chapter features a quick and non-explicit reference to a suicide attempt. It's literally one sentence, but I thought I'd better warn for it anyway.

He could feel the pull of Natasha's grace as soon as they stepped foot in Seattle. It was like a sixth sense, something that was part of him and not at the same time, and Bucky absolutely hated it.

It reminded him of the taste of demon blood on his tongue, of moving furniture around with his mind, of choking Lilith to death without lifting a finger and watching as a gate to the deepest pit of hell opened beneath his feet.

Bucky had tried accessing powers beyond human nature before, and it had brought him nothing but pain. He wanted nothing to do with these new ones that Lucifer had left him.

But he had to admit that it was practical.

“Natasha wants to talk to us,” he said as Clint rode into the urban area proper.

“Natasha? How do you-” He shot a look at James. “Oh, right. Weird angelic psychic connection. So she's in town?”

“Feels like it. And I'm assuming she's letting me feel her presence on purpose, which must mean she wants to meet up with us.”

“Gosh do I miss cellphones. Heard some people are working on setting up new networks. Probably expensive as hell, though. Like everything in this town.”

James had figured a while ago that Clint wasn't too happy about passing through a re-urbanized area. He'd been grumbling about it for the whole day.

“You really don't like the city, do you?”

Clint groaned dramatically. “No. I _used to_. Lived in New York for a while before the Apocalypse. Loved it there. It was the opposite of Bumfuck, Iowa where I grew up, and a lot more comfortable than travelling around with a circus. I would have stayed there, maybe, if it wasn't for the fact that I was paying my rent by acting as a thief for hire and that I almost got caught. Had to scram after that. Then I fell into hunting.” There was a pause, like there often was when hunters talked about how they'd gotten into the life. Bucky remembered that clearly from the years he had spent on the road with Steve, lifetimes ago. “But this isn't the same thing, you know? New York before-” The pause after that word was also familiar, just a beat of silence that didn't need to be filled because it always meant the same thing. “It was bursting with life. There was almost too much of it. That was what made it a city you know? This is...” He gestured to the scenery around the car: mostly empty streets - although there were a lot more cars parked around than in most other areas they frequented – lined by buildings that were obviously uncared for even if they were still standing. A distinct lack of advertisements compared to Before. “This is fake, you know? It's pretend.”

“I guess it makes sense for some people. Those who'd never learned to survive in the wild before. There's strength in numbers.”

Clint shook his head. “Maybe, but there's no strength in creating gated-off communities that don't produce enough ressources and refuse to create adequate trade networks to make up for those insufficiencies. This is like walling yourself in and waiting to die.”

James raised an eyebrow. That whole speech seemed a bit excessive, and he was sure there was some history there that Clint probably didn't want to talk about. Probably something about death. It was always about death.

“Do you know where Natasha would want us to meet?”

“Why, does your psychic sense not tell you that?”

“Don't call it that.” Clint raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. “It's not... precise. I can kind of feel her presence, but unless you want to waste gas by driving around playing hot and cold, it would be much easier to figure out where exactly she is another way.”

“Sorry. Didn't mean to offend.”

Bucky sighed. “It's fine. I just... I don't exactly _like_ this.”

“You mean you don't enjoy having the grace of the archangel who took control of your body, messed you up and nearly destroyed the whole planet inside you? I don't know what you mean, it sounds like a perfectly good time.”

James stopped himself from chuckling, instead only affording Clint an eyeroll. The last thing the blond needed was _encouragement_. But he was smiling, and Clint had probably noticed that, so it was a moot point anyway.

“I think I might know the place,” Clint said, narrowing his eyes as he examined the road in front of him and presumably tried to get to their destination. “I used to talk about it during the last year of the war. There's apparently this one shop that still sells coffee. It probably costs a liver to buy a cup, but I used to tell Natasha that if we won this stupid thing, if we survived, I'd go buy myself some anyway. Never actually did, of course, and I don't know if it still exists. But it's the only place I can think of in Seattle that either of us would have an obvious connection to.”

“It's worth a try.”

The city wasn't as organized as the autonomous zones like those in LA, but they at least had a few checkpoints before entering the busiest neighbourhoods. They parked the van in a side-street, and Clint grumbled about the lack of organized escape route and the probability of some city-slicker stealing the Old Thing.

The presence Bucky could feel at the edge of his mind was more insistent, which he took to mean that Natasha was indeed close by. Clint walked ahead of him, looking at street signes until he stopped in front of what looked like just another abandoned café.

“Are you going to tell me that they're hiding in plain sight by making the place look as rundown as possible?”

Clint shrugged. “No use in telling you something you already know.” He pushed at the door, and it opened easily. The inside looked like it hadn't seen a soul in years, except that there was a distinct pattern of disturbed dust leading to the back door.

Bucky was frankly confused by all of this. Did the Apocalypse really cause the creation of _coffee speakeasies_? Was that what the world had come to?

They opened the second door, and the space inside was a lot more comfortable. It was perfectly clean, for once, with two tables and a few mismatched chairs crammed next to what had obviously been the kitchen in the café's previous life.

In one of the chair sat Natasha, and in the kitchen space stood a woman in her forties.

“Newcomers,” she commented with a gaze that said she found them utterly lacking in probably everything. “Interesting. What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

“They're with me,” Natasha called from where she was sitting. “Give them an espresso each. I'll pay.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at her, wondering what she was playing at, but the nephilim ignored him entirely. Instead, she was looking at Clint and grinning wildly. The man, in response, was staring at her like she was an oasis in the desert.

“Really?”

“Of course, I wasn't going to meet you here and not let you sample the goods. Besides, you did say you would come and celebrate the end of the Apocalypse someday, right?”

“Fuck yes!” Clint walked over to Natasha and gave her a hug. Over his shoulder, Bucky saw her grin dim, turning compassionate and maybe a little sad. She caught his gaze lingering on her, raising an eyebrow as if in challenge. Then Clint let her go.

The barista – Bucky didn't know what else to call her, since her job was indeed to make coffee for her customers, even if the operation felt a lot more clandestine than the word barista implied – looked over the scene with a fondness laced with amusement.

“Go sit down, I'll bring the drinks over,” she told Bucky. He did as he was told, and sat down next to Clint and across from Natasha.

The feeling of her grace was now only a gentle hum, like the warmth of a candle if he held his hand above it. This confirmed his theory that the nephilim was only letting herself be sensed by Bucky and that she could control the power she projected a lot more than him.

“I know you probably wanna go straight down to business,” Clint told Bucky. “But the coffee comes first. I have literally waited for _years_ for this. I'm going to enjoy it.”

He was practically vibrating from excitement.

“Sure.” Bucky didn't really understand the feeling. He'd used to drink his fair share of coffee, like a lot of people, but mostly as a way to keep himself awake. The pure joy in Clint's eyes? That was something else.

At least it was genuinely good coffee. Bucky drank his without fuss, although he did enjoy it. Clint, on the other hand, sipped at his cup, making what could only be described as an obscene noise on his first taste.

Natasha watched him do it, a small smile on her face. There was something protective to the expression that testified to the history between them. Bucky had the inane thought that Clint was very lucky to have someone as powerful as Natasha to watch over him.

Then again, even _she_ was scared of what was coming, so maybe it didn't mean much.

“Okay, so I don't want to know what you paid for that, but also it was definitely worth it. _Coffee_. Sweet nectar of life. I can't believe I got to taste coffee again. _Thank you._ Now-” He put down his espresso cup. “What kind of favor do you need to ask?”

Natasha didn't seem offended by Clint's bluntness. Instead she smirked. Bucky had a feeling that these were well-rehearsed parts for the both of them. “Can one friend not extend a small kindness towards another?”

“Ah! Small kindness my ass. This espresso must have cost a fortune _and_ you called Bucky here via angel-telepathy-whatever-thing. So spit it out.” The last part of this response was said on a much more serious tone, although without aggressivity.

“I'm gonna need your help finding Steve Rogers,” Natasha replied. Except she wasn't looking at Clint, but at Bucky instead.

He didn't say anything. He wasn't exactly surprised. He'd known he would have to face Steve again someday and fate seemed to have a knack for playing with him, so... He'd been expecting something like this for a while. But that didn't mean he was ready.

“I've been able to track him down, more or less, and I'm fairly sure that he's _somehow_ involved in the whole purgatory business. But he's also been avoiding me.”

“Avoiding you?” Clint asked.

“I think he can sense me. My grace. That, or someone's put a tracking spell on me and he's using it to get ahead of me every time. Either way, I can't reach him. But James... Well. That's another story. I'm assuming that if I can point you to a close enough destination, what's left of Michael and Lucifer's grace might react to one another. After all, they've got history. They've touched before.”

Bucky knew that an angel's blade was an extension of their grace and so, indeed, by stabbing Lucifer, Michael had let both of their essences come into intimate contact.

“It's not a perfect plan, far from it. But you're both very good hunters. You can rely on that to track him down if need be.”

“Okay, sure, but then what do we do? We find Rogers and... what? Ask him very politely to stop whatever he's doing.”

Natasha shrugged. “I mean, I'm not _insisting_ on the polite part.”

Clint shook his head. “You know that's not what I mean. We still don't know what the hell is happening here.”

“I know that someone's trying to open a door. I know that we don't have much more time. Something's already slipped through, Clint. There are new monsters around, things I've never seen before. There's no other place they could have come from.”

“You're sure?”

“I am. Right now it's not much, I think whoever's doing this just managed to create a crack for a few moments. But if an actual door opens... We don't know what might come out.”

“So we've got to stop them.” Clint sighed.

“I know I'm asking too much. But I trust you for this.” This time, she was fully addressing Clint. It seemed her plan relied heavily on the both of them sticking together. “You'll make the right call, when it comes to it. You'll figure something out.”

“Right. I guess I always do. So, what do you say?”

Bucky was surprised to be asked the question. Considering his part in the plan, he'd been feeling like his cooperation was a given. He wasn't used yet to the idea that his choice could be respected, that his consent could be _required_.

(Angels did require consent, but they had no problem twisting that concept to its very limit. How could a man who had lost everything, who had been manipulated until he barely knew who he even was, who had been in so much pain that he would have done _anything_ to make it stop give consent?) (And Bucky had tried to say no. He had done _everything_ he could to say no. Lucifer had brought him back before his body had even hit the floor.)

But Natasha and Clint weren't Lucifer. And Bucky had a chance to do some right by the humanity he still felt he had failed.

It wouldn't be easy, especially if he had to face Steve again, but it was time that Bucky took that step into the unknown he had been dreading for the past two years.

“I'm in.”

“Cool. We still have a hunt to finish here first, though.”

“Right. Well, I'll be here when you're done,” Natasha said, dismissing them with a gesture of her hand and a glance in the barista's direction.


	11. Chapter 11

There were many good things about the fact that hunters had come out into the open after the start of the Apocalypse. A lot less questions were asked about why Clint was always carrying a gun and a silver knife on his person, for starters. And a lot more people knew who to go for when they needed help. Sure, they'd lost their innocence about the existence of evil or whatever, but angels and demons fighting it out in plain sight had kind of put a dent in that anyway. Besides, Clint was of the opinion that there wasn't much innocence to be found in the world even if you didn't know about monsters. Sue him, he'd had a rough childhood.

There was one disadvantage, however. In most organized communities, like those of cities or autonomous zones, hunters were well-known. That meant that the more crafty monsters, those who could hide in plain sight amongst humans, knew to avoid them.

So there was still need for some subterfuge. Still need for outside help. That was what the hunter code was for, among other things, and that's why there were networks of people in rest camps and other places that passed on messages and calls for help. Clint really missed the days of the internet and cellphone towers sometimes.

They'd come to Seattle because someone had passed on info about a potential siren roaming the city. These were rare monsters, they weren't a lot of them in the US before the Apocalypse, and even less now. They manipulated humans, tricked them into loving them and then asked them to kill and torture as a way to show their devotion. It was the energy that went into those acts, the adoration, that the sirens fed on.

Thing was, this kind of abrupt change of behavior was easily noticed in the close-knit groups that people now lived in. There weren't a lot of places where one of these monsters could go unnoticed, and the re-urbanized zones like the city of Seattle represented most of them.

Clint hated cities.

The new ones at least. He didn't like what they stood for, not in this new world.

Although he did appreciate the coffee, and the fact that there were still bars around that he wasn't banned from.

Sure, they cost more than he could afford to spend, usually, but if they were working a case, the expense was justified, right?

They hadn't gotten a lot of information on the victims of this siren, only an indication of which area it used as hunting grounds. But it made sense to think that it would target drifters, people with fewer links to the community, and therefore less people asking into their behavior.

And it made sense for people who were just passing through to spend their evening in the shittiest bars around. (Those were the only ones Clint and James could afford anyway. It wasn't like they were getting paid for these jobs, or not much anyway.)

So that's where Clint was, working his way through a beer and doing his best to look available and lonely. (It wasn't very hard.)

The thing with sirens was that they were tricky to kill. If you wanted to be sure of your move, you had to go at it with a bronze dagger dipped in the blood of one of their victims. Obviously, that wasn't something you could just pick up at a supermarket, even when there had been supermarkets around. Which was why Clint was playing bait.

(He hadn't even really tried to convince James to take his place, remembering the fiasco that had been the first drink they'd had together. If he was recognized today, not only would it put the hunt into jeopardy, it would put their _lives_ on the line. This wasn't some isolated hunter bar in a small community. There were too many people around that could turn against them in a city like this, and it just wasn't worth the risk.)

So James was waiting outside, acting as lookout. He was observing everyone coming and going, trying to spot anything suspicious. Clint was doing the same inside, while at the same time trying to attract the siren's attention. If the monster decided to seduce Clint next, it would be the best case scenario. He was willing to get hurt to kill it, at least if that meant that nobody else had to.

This was a dangerous hunt. One that could really only be done by two people, and that required a lot of trust. In a way, it would be a good preparation for whatever Natasha had planned for them next. Despite her attempts at making light of it, he couldn't expect the hunt for Steve Rogers to be easy, especially when they didn't know what they were walking into or how either Steve or James would react to seeing the other. (And the fact that Natasha was even contemplating the fact that someone had cast a spell powerful enough to track her meant that the risk of walking into a shitty situation were high.)

But Clint couldn't focus on that right now. He had more immediate concerns. So he went back to nursing his beer and cast a look around the room.

There was a redheaded woman a few tables over who met his gaze head-on, smiling when he noticed her. The game was on, then.

He smiled at her, openly but not aggressively. He was trying to pass himself off as an easy victim, here. Someone desperate for connection.

She gestured with her head, asking him if he wanted to share her table. Clint forced his expression into one of surprise, and she grinned at that. Picking up his half-drunken beer, he went and sat across from her.

He introduced himself as Ryan. She said her name was Cherry. He wasn't sure either of them belived the other, but well. So was life these days.

He kept waiting for the siren's poison to hit him, for the change to be obvious. But so far the woman in front of him seemed like just a woman. An attractive one, one who shouldn't have had any reason to be interested in Clint, especially since he hadn't even offered to buy her a drink. They talked, and they laughed, and Clint didn't really understand how this could still come naturally to him. Maybe _that_ was the monster's effect, the easy way he flirted back, forgetting to feel uncomfortable, forgetting to think too hard. It didn't feel like much, definitely not enough to make him kill someone he cared about, but he supposed that the other victims probably hadn't realized they were being manipulated either.

Wait and see. Clint's job was done, after all. His _goal_ had been to be dosed with the siren's poison. So maybe he should just relax and enjoy this encounter. Leave it to James to figure out what their next step should be.

That would be nice.

He and Cherry kept on chatting, finishing their bottles each. She didn't offer to order another round, and he didn't either, but neither of them left their chair. Wanting to see where this would go, Clint looked towards the door, then back at the woman in front of him. He pretended to consider her for a second, acted a little shy.

“Do you think you'd like to... go somewhere else?”

She raised an eyebrow, but smiled at the suggestion. “Sure. You got anywhere in mind?”

Clint shrugged. “Well, I'm kind of new in town so... Not really.” If the siren hadn't infected him with her venom yet, maybe it was because she was waiting to get him back to her own turf. Somewhere private, without any potential witnesses. If she was aware of the potential hunters after her, that would make a lot of sense. “Do _you_ have any suggestions?”

She smiled. Grinned, really, the expression always toeing the edge between sweet and predatory.

“I mean, I do have a house with a bed big enough for two.”

It wasn't too hard to laugh in response, and to add something about how lovely that sounded. None of this was really hard at all.

They stepped out of the bar, and Clint couldn't help but glance in the direction of the building James had chosen as his hideout. It was a bad reflect, the kind of stuff that could compromise someone, but Clint hid it by turning fully and kissing Cherry on the lips.

She responded in kind and that, too, was easy. Cherry hadn't asked any question about where he came from, nothing beyond what brought him to the city. She hadn't dug into his lies. He hadn't asked much either, hadn't wanted to humanize this cover of hers by imagining it as having a life. But it didn't change that much for him. Really, this was the kind of intimacy that he was most comfortable with, one that didn't ask for more than he could give.

He hadn't seen James where he was hiding, but that was a good thing. The man was competent, he wouldn't let himself be caught so easily. Clint knew that. So he let himself be dragged when Cherry pulled at his hand, and he let himself laugh and not think, and he kissed her again on the way to her house, and he got into bed with her, still not feeling like there was any compulsion pushing him beyond the simple desire to touch and be touched, still willing to see this hunt through to its end.

He woke up the next morning in Cherry's bed, without her and without the desire to kill anyone in her name.

So maybe she hadn't been the siren. _Oops_. Awkward.

Well, awkward for James. He was pretty sure that Cherry had had a good time, just as he did. At least she didn't seem to be complaining when he joined her in the kitchen.

She also didn't seem offended when Clint made up some excuse about needing to leave. Cherry was the kind of woman who had no problem leaving other people behind, and who didn't see the issue with getting the same treatment.

She was smart.

She was smart, and pretty, and undemanding, and really Clint couldn't see what more he could have asked of a siren, if that was what she had been.

He stepped out of her house, onto the street, looking around himself to try and get a bearing of where exactly he was. He hadn't been too attentive last night, hadn't felt like he needed to, not when he hadn't been supposed to still be aware of himself in the morning. He walked in what he thought was the direction he'd been coming from the day before, and waited.

James was supposed to meet up with him. Whether or not he thought that Clint had been dosed with the siren's poison, he was supposed to be there, either to take his blood or so that they would figure out what their next move would be.

But he wasn't.

Clint walked and kept walking, until he was back at the bar from the night before. He broke into the abandoned building that James had been supposed to hide in, but didn't find anything there.

James was gone.

Dread settled in his stomach.

Maybe he'd just left. They barely knew each other. Maybe he'd just had enough. Besides, he had his reasons to be skittish about Natasha's plan to go after Rogers. Maybe those were good enough that he'd felt the need to bail while he still could.

He hadn't thought that his guts would twist at the idea. Because that was the _good_ option. That was the option where James wasn't hurt. It was Clint trying to reassure himself, but even that seemed to be making him sick.

The truth was, Clint didn't really believe that James had left, at least not of his own volition.

_Fuck_.

He had to find James again. Had to figure out whether he'd been hit with the siren's venom like Clint suspected. Had to discover who the siren was. Avoid dying while taking James' blood, then kill the monster.

Simple. Right?

First thing first, Clint went back to the _other_ abandoned building where they had stashed their stuff and where his van was parked. Maybe he should have asked Cherry for breakfast before leaving.

Perhaps simple plans were the best ones, because step one was fairly easy to accomplish. As soon as Clint entered the building, he saw James, standing in the middle of the room.

When Clint called his name, he looked up, walking towards him decisively.  
Clint was going to take that as a yes on him being dosed with the siren's venom. Step two accomplished! He was _on fire_.

Except that then James was grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, lifting him up with the prostethic arm that Clint wasn't sure was made of metal at all, despite its gleaming surface. Clint kicked and thrashed, without much use, so instead he grabbed the bronze dagger he had prepared to deal with the siren and slashed across James' side with it. James grunted, loosening his hold but still hanging on, so Clint thrust his knee into the same flank before dropping to the ground when the other man let go of him.

He was quick to recover and to put some space between him and his friend. That was when he noticed the figure at the opposite corner of the room. They were lounging against a wall, a smirk on their face.

So. That was step three and four taken care of. Find the siren, get one of its victim's blood. Now he just had to kill the monster without dying first.

_Easy peasy._

“James. You gotta snap out of it, man. You gotta shake the siren's hold, because I really don't want to hurt you more than I have to and I'm very afraid that you're gonna hurt me.”

From the other side of the room, the siren laughed. “Oh, but he will. You can count on that.”

“Wasn't talking to you, assface.”

“Already at it with the insults. You hunters really have no sense of class.”

“Yeah, 'cause controlling people's mind with venom is real classy.”

James was standing still, looking like he was completely out of it, but at least not attacking for now. That left Clint free to banter with the day's villain while he tried to figure out how he was going to get from one side of the room to the other without getting injured by the brainwashed hunter in the middle.

“It's in my nature. We do what we have to do to survive, just like you humans. Besides, there are worse ways to feed than by giving people what they want.”

“Oh, right. Because that's totally what you're doing. It's not as if you're turning people against those they love and leaving them with their broken hearts once you've finished gorging yourself.”

The siren shrugged, detaching themselves from the wall and coming closer.

Good. Less distance, more chances for Clint to kill them. Could he manage to throw the dagger from here? Probably, but if the wound he inflicted wasn't lethal, he would be out of his only efficient weapon, and there would be no one to stop the siren from making James kill him. He'd better not risk it.

“I do give them what they want. For a while. Does it really matter if it doesn't last? You humans are so... desperate for it. For love. Connection. For a way to prove yourself.”

The siren had reached James, laying a casual hand on the hunter's shoulder. Clint could now see clearly the appearance that the monster had taken, that of a blond white man in his mid-thirties, dressed casually. He didn't look like anyone's fantasy, but Clint figured that what most people wanted wasn't really a fantasy at all. They were only looking for someone who understood them.

“Like our friend here. James, you said his name was? There wasn't much that he wanted. A friend. Someone he could trust and who would trust him. Someone who would made him feel worthy. He's so eager to prove his worth to someone. So, what about it, James? How about you kill your friend over here, to show me how much you care about me?”

James didn't respond, but his attention definitely shifted back to Clint. He didn't even draw a weapon, just took a step forward. Clint guessed that he probably didn't _need_ a weapon, not with that arm of his and his fighting skills. This was going to get messy, fast.

Clint dashed to the right, but James was quick too. He grabbed Clint by the shoulder, and the latter retaliated by slashing him with his knife, forcing him to let go. He could already tell that this was going to be a frustrating fight, as he tried not to hurt James too badly. The man hissed, barely taking a step back before aiming a punch at Clint's face. He ducked, retaliating with an elbow kick that barely made James grunt, then got a knee slammed into his stomach for his trouble.

“Snap out of it, James, come on. I know you're tired of serving as a plaything to monsters. This isn't you. You're stronger than that.”

“Oh, look at you,” the siren commented from a few meters away. “So earnest and tragic. You know you're only making this better for me, right?”

“I'm not-” Clint allowed one of James' hit to connect, wincing, then used the closeness between them to slam the handle of his knife into the wound he'd inflected earlier in his side. “Talking to you!”

Clint dashed past James as he stumbled, all but throwing himself at the siren. Except that, barely a foot away from it, he felt something hit his face, vaguely burning, and his bronze dagger tumbled to the ground.

The siren hissed. “Did you really expect that to work?”

Clint's head felt woozy. There was something alluring in the siren's voice now, a tone that made something settle deeply inside of Clint's chest. Something that made him feel whole, pleased, happy.

“You've ruined my fun. There's really no point in controlling you both like this, it loses all its appeal. But I'll have to make do, I suppose. So how about this, boys? If one of you kills the other, he'll get to stay with me forever.”

And that prospect... That was something worth killing for. Clint knew that deep in his bones even if he couldn't quite put words to what the man who had spoken represented in his life. No, not the man. The siren. The monster. He had to fight this. Had to fight this voice and the promises it contained.

Did he, though? Did he really have to fight? Wouldn't it be better, easier, to just let himself go, to do as he was told? Wasn't any sort of promise, even if it came from a monster, better than what he had right now? The running around he was doing, from one awful place to the other just because he didn't know how to let himself grow roots anymore, didn't know how to attach himself to a place and not ruin it, didn't trust himself as anything other than a weapon to be pointed at the monsters always roaming around.

If he killed James... If he killed James, he could have someone by his side. Someone who trusted him, someone who didn't keep secrets from him, someone who could tell him what he was supposed to do. If he killed James, he could find someone to belong to, someone who would love him without needing to learn about his past, someone who would take care of him.

Killing James. That was what he had to do. There was no question about it. Why would he ignore that sweet sweet voice coursing through his blood? For _James_?

Sure, the man had become a friend. Clint cared about him, in a way. He was a companion, someone Clint could trust to have his back in a fight. Someone who let him listen to his music in the van, even if he rolled his eyes at Clint's tastes.

But he was also Lucifer's vessel, a man so full of secrets that they kept bursting out of him. Could Clint ever rely on someone like that, someone so much like him?

No, it was better if he killed him. No matter if James was a good man, someone who was trying hard to attone for past mistakes, someone that Clint could understand.

The thing Clint wanted the most was someone who would not leave him alone. Someone who wouldn't need to, someone who Clint wouldn't push away.

If he killed James, he could have that. He could stay with the siren forever.

He lurched towards the other hunter, not bothering to pick up the bronze dagger, but instead taking his handgun out of his thigh holster. James was a good fighter, maybe better than him, so he had to be fast and he had to be merciless. He fired, aiming for the chest, but James blocked him with his prosthetic hand and the bullets ricocheted against the strange metal without even leaving a dent. Clint got punched for his troubles, and felt his lower lip split. He was no stranger to the taste of blood, however, so that was not about to stop him. Instead, it reminded him of all the fights he had gotten into over the years, most of them dirty and unfair, and he grinned. He used the barrell of his gun to hit James in the face, only missing the temple because the other man moved so quick. James aimed for his wrist, and instead of waiting to drop his weapon, Clint let go and took it up in his other hand, firing once more. The bullet only grazed Jame's thigh, and he flinched but didn't let go of Clint, twisting his arm painfully.

Clint endured the pain just enough to find a good position to flip James' weight above him. The other man hit the floor, but rolled, kicking the gun out of Clint's hand. He got up again, and he and Clint were left staring at each other, both weaponless.

That wasn't good for Clint, who was aware that he had almost no chance of winning if he was to go toe-to-toe with James in a hand-to-hand fight. Still, the man was injured, a lot more than Clint, who was used to ignoring things like bruises, split lips and broken noses. And Clint had something to fight for. Something important, a promise that had been made to him. He would do anything and everything for this, it didn't matter if the odds were against him, it didn't matter if it was impossible for him to win. He would do it anyway.

He moved quickly, fists raised, targeted Jame's sides where the cut from the bronze dagger was still tainted with blood.

He got hit in the face, in the shoulder, kicked in the stomach, but it didn't matter. Clint kept going, kept fighting, because he needed to. He would do what needed to be done, no matter the cost.

Then his legs were swept from under him and he fell to the ground, at least satisfied in the fact that he dragged James down with him. They struggled on the floor, and Clint felt a hit land much too close to his eye, knew it would swell and turn purple.

He knew he was losing.

“I won't let you win this, James. I can't let you win this, now that there's finally somewhere I can belong, someone I can't disappoint. You won't take that away from me, you can't!”

He punched James in the face, hitting as hard as he could, not caring that his knuckles would bruise. He only cared that James stumbled enough for him to roll them over, to lean over him and punch, keep on punching, right through the pain, right through everything.

“I've finally got a chance at something permanent, something I won't ruin, and you want to TAKE IT FROM ME!”

There was a loud scream, so loud it seemed to crash through Clint's brain, re-arranging the signals firing off within it.

He blinked, and stared at Jame's face in front of him, at the lost quality in his gaze, at his arm still extended. He looked up, and saw the body of the siren, a bronze dagger coated in blood protruding from its heart. Even as he stared at the body, its glamour started fading away. The shape of the blond man, created for Bucky's sake, shimmered and crumbled away, leaving behind a being of gray flesh, with protruding eyes and too many sharp teeth.

As the last effects of the creature's venom faded away, Clint felt exhaustion settle deeply in his body. He barely had the presence of mind to move off of James before he collapsed to the floor. He was _so_ tired. Everything in his body ached, his lip and his eye were throbbing with a dull pain that he knew would last for several days.

His mind felt like it was in pieces.

He felt James start moving next to him and watched him rise to his feet and walk to the dead siren. He took the dagger out of the thing's chest, then stabbed it again. Once, twice, three times. Then he stopped, took a few more steps, and sat down against a wall.

Clint had never seen him dish out that kind of violence. The kind that was pointless, only meant to exorcise an urge. At the same time, he wholly understood why James had done it.

He wanted that monster to be dead. Really and truly dead.

He wanted it to have suffered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fills my Winterhawk Bingo square for "Mind Control" :')
> 
> Fun fact: this chapter idea is what made me want to write the fic in the first place. It was also supposed to be the second-to-last chapter in my original plan, except that the plot then sprouted a Purgatory sooooooo... look forward to some more action for these boys!


	12. Chapter 12

It took Bucky a long time to regain a somewhat normal breathing pattern. More than it would have if the exhaustion he was feeling had been only physical.

It had just been one siren. It should have been an easy, straightforward hunt. Those creatures weren't known for their physical strength. The hardest was to find and corner them.

It had been supposed to be easy, and James shouldn't have even had to put himself on the line.

But the siren hadn't been where they had expected it. It hadn't been at the bar, had been roaming around the nighbourhood instead. Bucky still wasn't sure how it had found them. Maybe it had seen them break into the building that Bucky had used to keep watch. Maybe it had recognized them as hunters then, and that's why it hadn't gone to the bar and had waited to attack Bucky instead.

All he knew was that he hadn't seen the monster coming. All he knew was that the siren had dosed him with its venom before he could even react, could even _think_ of warning Clint.

And then the siren had played with him. It hadn't showed itself at first, when the venom still wasn't at full effect. It had stayed in the shadows, just talking. Its voice had been sweet and melodic, the kind of tone one remembered from childhood lullabies.

James had wanted to tell that voice everything. He would have done anything to keep hearing it.

And then it had come forward, shaped like a man with blond hair and blue eyes, and the images of Clint and Steve had superposed themselves in Bucky's mind, filling his chest with the feeling of _home_ , of _trust_.

The siren told him it loved him. It told him it forgave him. That was enough for Bucky to want to kill for it.

It had played with his mind for hours, waiting. Waiting for Clint to come back. Clint, the only person in Bucky's life that was accessible and whose death would cause Bucky enough pain to feed the siren's hunger.

It had taken the entire night. Bucky didn't remember much of it. Mostly the desire to please, the rush of love in his body. He didn't want to think about the fact that he had felt more alive that night than he had in a long time, all because of the magic he'd been infected with.

After so long under it, Bucky really hadn't expected to be able to break the siren's thrall.

But there had been something in the words that Clint had said to him under the siren's influence. The way he had been so convinced of his own unworthiness, so convinced that he was incapable of ever keeping a relationship together.

Clint's words had echoed in his own chest, twisted by the way that _he_ saw Clint. It had been jarring to recognize himself in the man he had thought was so different, the man who could smile through his pain, the man who still had friends, still had a home, even if he refused to let it restrain his movements. It had been enough to shake the siren's spell, for a second, because that kind of feeling hadn't fit within the siren's fantasy. Its thrall relied on Clint not understanding him, on Clint not being enough. It relied on Clint being so much better than him that Bucky didn't deserve his company.

Clint's words hadn't fit within the narrative, and so for a second the spell had... stuttered, was perhaps the best way of expressing it. It had been enough for Bucky to grab the bronze dagger, aim and throw. Sadly, Bucky knew a lot about his own mind being twisted against him. He had known how to seize the opportunity because, despite the spell, a part of him had still been desperately fighting for control.

He should have known that working this case would be a bad idea. Should have known to stay away from anything that had the potential to twist his mind. But he'd thought that he might have been over his grief. He _should be_. He was planning on confronting Steve Rogers, and he couldn't let what had happened to him interfere with that.

Except he hadn't been ready. And now he was sitting on the ground, struggling to breathe, his hands covered in the siren's blood, because he hadn't been able to leave well-enough alone, and he'd had to make sure the thing was _dead_.

Like he couldn't make sure that Lucifer really was gone. Like he didn't know whether the other angels had been destroyed or not. Whether the hell of possession would happen to anyone else.

Clint and him both stayed silent for a long time, covered in blood and bruises, but aching inside most of all, where not only their bodies but their emotions had been violated.

“James?” Clint called, sitting up from where he'd been lying on the ground.

Bucky looked at him, truly focusing on the hunter for the first time since the siren's spell had worn off. The left side of his face had swollen up, forcing him to keep his eye half closed, and his chin was covered in blood from a split lip. Blood that matched the one on Bucky's knuckles. He shuddered.

There were so many more layers of blood under that one. Blood that had seeped under his skin and into his bones. Bucky was no stranger to the feeling of watching his own hands destroy while his screams went unheard and he stayed unable to stop it. He knew intimately the feeling that came after, as he tried to reckon with what had happened, tried to find himself again within this body that kept on escaping him.

The knowledge only made this process worse.

“We should probably get cleaned up,” Clint said. “You know. Stave off an infection. I don't think you'd love to go to a hospital. _I_ wouldn't. I hated hospitals even before the Apocalypse.”

“Clint,” Bucky forced himself to say through gritted teeth. “Stop. Just... stop.”

“Okay.” Clint stood up, walking to the bags they had stashed in one corner of the abandonned apartment what felt like a lifetime ago. He took out the first-aid kit and came back to sit cross-legged in front of Bucky before methodically disinfecting the various scrapes that covered his body. His knuckles especially were torn open and bloody, and Bucky saw him wince as the disinfectant hit the wounds.

He didn't say anything else, just worked in silence and let Bucky calm down and come back to himself. He didn't look scared, and Bucky didn't know what to make of that. _He_ was always scared of himself.

When Clint was done with the disinfectant, he slid it towards Bucky. Without a word, without pushing. Just letting him know that it was available, that Bucky should probably take care of himself even if he wouldn't let anyone else do it for him.

So Bucky picked the bottle up, as well as some sterile gauze, and he did his best to clean and bandage his wounds. The worst of them were definitely the knife-wound on his side and the one where one of Clint's bullets had grazed him on his thigh. The rest were mostly bruises, with a shallow cut near his shoulder.

Clint had been careful, when he hadn't yet been under the siren's thrall. Careful not to cause any permanent injury, anything that would stop them from leaving town as quickly as possible afterwards. And when he _had_ been controlled by the monster... well. Bucky was strong. Strong from years of hunting, years of being trained, fed demon blood and unleashed on anyone within hell's hordes that dared question orders, years of his body learning to endure the power of an archangel. Clint hadn't stood a chance. Of course he hadn't been able to hurt him, or at least not much. Bucky could kill him with his eyes closed, if he put his mind to it. Or if someone else did that for him.

“Okay, so I know you told me to shut up, but about what I said...”

Bucky looked up from where he was finishing to bandage his thigh. He would probably have to ask Clint to re-do his side at some point, because his position had been awkward, but he also didn't want to be touched by someone else right then, so for now this would have to do.

“It doesn't matter. It was the siren speaking,” Bucky grumbled.

Clint shook his hand in a _so-so_ gesture. “Was it though? I've been possessed before. You know that. By that ghost a few days back, but also once by a demon. That's how I came into hunting. It's not really an experience you can forget, and I didn't have a white picket fence life to go back to anyway so... Might as well _try_ to ensure no one would deal with the same thing as me.” He stopped, scratched the back of his hair a little. “I'm rambling, aren't I? Okay. What I actually meant to say is that I know what possession feels like, and I know you do too.” He had the kindness to look apologetic as he said that. “And the siren's venom? It's not the same. It's not something else speaking through your body. It's this force making you say thing you wouldn't in other circumstances, but things that are still rooted in what you actually think. In what you actually feel.”

Clint was right. Of course he was. But that didn't mean that Bucky was happy to talk about all of this. He didn't want to admit how easy it had been to fall back into that state where all he had to think about was what someone else wanted from him, where all that mattered was to do what he was told.

How had the siren phrased it? _So eager to prove his worth to someone._ That was how it had always been. First he'd been trying to make himself worthy of Steve, worthy of following a man who really believed, even if he himself didn't. And then there were the demons, Rumlow's voice susurring in his ear, telling him it would all be better this way, if he just proved himself, proved that he was capable of what was being asked of him.

Lucifer was perhaps the one person who he hadn't felt like he needed to convince. Bucky didn't know what to make of that.

Now he was back to his default setting, stumbling through the world and trying to convince himself that he still had the right to be here.

“So... like... I do feel like I should address the things I said, you know? So it doesn't stay between us, or whatever. Also, um, I don't know, maybe talking about the fact that we just tried to kill each other could be a good idea.”

“Right.”

Clint was trying so hard to make it all okay, to salvage what was between them, and Bucky didn't want to tell him that the prospect of talking about what he felt made him want to run away.

“So I guess, first of all, I'm sorry about trying to kill you.”

“Likewise,” Bucky replied.

There was a beat of silence before Clint grinned. He ran a hand through his hair, looking embarrassed. “This is kind of ridiculous, right? Whatever. I can work with it. Apology accepted. Now, as you may have noticed from my whole speech earlier,” he gestured towards the dead siren as he spoke. “I have some abandonnement issues. Or... I guess abandonnement isn't the right word, because most of the time I'm the one who ruins things and leaves? I guess that my issue is that I don't really know how to handle intense relationships. They tend not to end great for me, so I usually just self-sabotage before I can get to that point. By the way, all that is hindsight I got because Natasha and Kate have both spent half an hour shouting at me because of it, on two separate occasions. I'm not that introspective. But since we have this thing going together, and it's going well – at least I think it's going well, tell me if I'm wrong – I thought maybe you should know that... that's something I might do. Try and push you away, because I feel like I'm not good enough. Or something.” Clint stopped then, looking down at the dirty floor between the two of them. “Phew. That was intense. Let's not get mind-controlled by sirens again, I don't like this.”

“Wasn't in my plans.”

Clint looked up at him, smiling softly. He didn't ask. He didn't push. If Bucky said nothing, he would probably accept it and move on. But Clint wasn't wrong. About the _thing_ between them. The fact that it was going well. And Bucky had told himself he would try. Try to connect again. Try to feel human.

“I get it, though,” he started, slow and awkward but _trying_. “The feeling of not being good enough. I get that. I've done so many wrong things over the course of my life. It's easy to think that all of the people who want me dead are actually right, that I just don't belong in this world anymore. And so I have to prove myself. Hunt. Do some good. Try to make up for the bad. But I guess all I'm trying to do is convince myself that it's okay. To be here. To live.”

Clint sighed. “Why is it so hard to just _be_ , without trying to prove anything to anyone? There's always something to prove. To family. To friends. To God, for the people who believe in that sort of things. We survived the Apocalypse. Are we supposed to prove that we're worthy of that? Are we supposed to ignore that, if God even exists, he made us live through all of that without lifting a finger to help? Are we supposed to _still_ aim for his approval after all of it? It's bullshit, man. We can't do it. All we have is ourselves, and it's hard enough to do right by that.”

“Yeah.”

They both lapsed into silence for a while, letting their physical aches set in even as their mental anguish settled down a bit.

“So we've got a thing going, uh?” Clint asked. When Bucky looked up, he had an eyebrow raised and a somewhat lascivious grin.

“Right. Don't push your luck.”

“I couldn't help but notice that your siren was a tall blond guy. You got a type, James?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Sure. People who don't have a black eye the size of a mandarin.”

“Eh. That will fade.”

They smiled at each other. Clint's jokes had had what Bucky figured was their intended effect, meaning that it had relaxed the mood a little, until neither of them felt quite so raw. At the same time, Bucky couldn't help but give some consideration to Clint's implications.

He hadn't ever thought he would have a friend again, much less a lover or whatever else Clint might be offering. The thought hadn't bothered him that much, not more than the nightmares and guilt that plagued him. But now that he was trying... Hell. Clint might not be a bad choice. He was funny, caring, loyal. Impulsive, sometimes, sure. As likely to keep his heart on his sleeve as he was to close up entirely and refuse to talk at all. But he wasn't scared of Bucky, and he didn't take any of his shit, and when he wasn't half covered in blood and blue with bruises, he was quite good-looking. _Charming_ seemed like the best descriptor, for some reason.

Bucky wasn't sure he trusted himself enough yet. He wasn't sure he was ready to flirt back just now. But later, when they were safe and rested and had healed. When it didn't feel like the world was about to end again.

Later... well. Clint might not be a bad choice at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short chapter this week, but chapter 13 will be longer and chapter 14 even more.
> 
> We're getting close to the end and I don't know how I feel about it.........


	13. Chapter 13

“What the hell happened _again_?” Natasha asked as soon as they walked into the coffeeshop.

Clint had expected that question, but he'd also hoped that Nat would at least let him get more than one foot inside before noticing his state. He winced a little.

“A siren happened, I guess.”

“Since when can a siren beat you up so badly?”

“Yeah, no, that wasn't the siren. It was James.” He gestured towards his companion. At least most of _his_ wounds were hidden by his clothes, so he wasn't at risk of getting his life choices insulted by his best friend.

Besides, Natasha should be happy that Clint had at least taken the time to wipe all the blood off his face.

“Oh. So I take it the hunt didn't exactly go as planned.”

“Because the black eye hadn't clued you into that?”

Natasha shrugged. “I mean, with you, it could have been a number of things. I try not to assume.”

“Right. Well. Point is, I got punched a few times, James has some bad cuts that need healing, so... you up to some magic?”

“Stop calling it magic, you know I'm not a witch.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know grace and magic aren't the same thing and mixing them up is bad for your reputation or whatever. You up for it though?”

Natasha sighed. “I'll see what I can do.”

Clint sat down in front of her, and Natasha raised a hand to his forehead. Her fingers started glowing. It wasn't the cold blue glow of angelic grace, Clint knew. Natasha's was warmer, a soft golden color.

Too late, he realized that he should probably have asked whether the barista of the café knew of Natasha's nature. Since she hadn't hesitated to use her powers, he assumed that yes.

Being healed like this was always a strange sensation. It was painless, but he could feel the power coursing through him, could feel the way his skin knitted itself back together, a tingling sensation like an insect running inside of him.

He'd let his eyes fall closed as Natasha healed him. It was easier, considering the state of the left half of his face. When he opened them again, it was easy. Out of habit, he raised his fingers to his eye, feeling the absence of swelling. He knew Natasha's powers were efficient, but it still felt too true to believe most of the time, hence his compulsion to check.

This had been one of the reasons Clint had been so mad when Natasha had revealed her true nature to him. He had seen so many people die during the War, people who hadn't been smitten, hadn't been destroyed in a beam of power, but had instead been left to suffer, bleeding out slowly, dying of infection, having to be left behind because there wasn't any other choice, because they were all running for their lives and couldn't afford to be slowed down. Some of them could have been saved. Some of them could still be alive today if Natasha had used her grace to heal them, except that she hadn't.

And she'd told Clint about the danger of doing that, about how using her powers meant making herself and all those around her vulnerable to both the angels and Lucifer, but there was a time when Clint hadn't cared about that. They had _already_ been vulnerable. They'd already been dying. He didn't want to have to think about the bigger picture when the small one was only blood as far as his eyes could see.

They'd moved past that. Clint had forgiven her for her secrecy, had forced himself to understand her point of view and the fear she'd held. Forgiveness didn't mean forgetting though, and Natasha was more aware of that than most. Now that she didn't have to worry about angels finding her, she'd gotten used to healing Clint's wounds nearly every time they saw each other. He _did_ have a tendency to rack up injuries.

Clint turned to James. He'd been the most injured, in the end. He'd survived Clint going at him with both a knife and a gun, though, so Clint couldn't really brag about their respective states.

James was eyeing Natasha's hands warily, holding his prosthetic wrist in what appeared to be a more or less subconscious gesture.

“Do you want a turn?” Clint asked. He hoped James said yes. Waiting for his wounds to heal properly would take too long, and Clint wasn't comfortable walking into the mess that the Steve Rogers situation promised to be without the both of them at full strength. In his (somewhat limited, he had to admit) experience, people who meddled with cosmic entities, whether they had good intentions or not, spelled out all kind of trouble of the painful sort.

“I...”

“It won't re-activate Lucifer's grace, if that's what you're worried about,” Natasha interrupted. “Actually, I've found that it's the opposite. Healing doesn't leave grace behind like possession does, but it... I guess it gets rid of what isn't supposed to be there, which means leftover grace too.”

That made James relax immediately, in an all-too visible way. He was usually pretty good at hiding his emotions, cultivating a carefully neutral face. The only time Clint had seen him close to anything resembling panic was when they'd killed the siren.

But this face wasn't panic, it was relief.

What did it feel like to have an archangel inside you? What did it feel like to know that a part of him had been left behind, quietly messing with your brain even after the entity it belonged to had died, making you feel things you weren't supposed to be aware of?

Clint suddenly realised what the strange metal of Jame's prosthetic arm reminded him of.

It had the same gleam as that of the blades that angels used.

Clint remembered being possessed by a demon as one of the worst things that had happened to him, and that had been _before_ the end of the world. And then again, as soon as hunters had saved him, he'd gotten an anti-possession tattoo. It was as easy as running a hand over his heart for him to remember that he was safe.

What would it be like not to have that? What would it be like not to have been possessed for three days but instead for three whole years? What would it be like not to have that constant reminder that the thing that had hurt him couldn't get in anymore, but instead to have to live with a piece of it inside of him forever? Not only inside, if Clint was right, but on the outside as well, visible to anyone who knew how to look.

If that arm really was made of angel grace, it was a sign to everyone that James had been marked, that he had been claimed. Clint felt sick to his stomach. No wonder the man was so eager to have his wounds healed now that Natasha had promised that it would erase some of the taint Lucifer had left behind.

He was grateful to her for offering this, for knowing how important it must be for James, even if she didn't know him well. He was grateful that she was willing to lose the connection that they had for now, that one tiny thread of power that bound her to something similar to her own nature.

Natasha wore loneliness like an old duchess would wear a furcoat, Clint sometimes thought.

“Please,” James said, offering his hand where Clint had cut it with the bronze dagger. Natasha pressed two careful fingers to his palm, right under the shallow cut.

Her hand glowed again, and James stiffened. If Clint could feel Natasha's power as it coursed through him, how did it feel for him, who was much more attuned to it? Was it more invading or the opposite? If his body recognized the sensation, did it welcome or reject it?

All questions that Clint knew not to ask. He didn't _need_ to know all of this. And so it was no business of his to dig up painful memories.

This was not something that he was meant to understand. He had made his peace with the fact that there were a lot of things like that, about the same time as angels had started to fall.

(The time between Clint's first touch with the supernatural and the start of the Apocalypse had been _full_ of questions. He was fairly certain that some people still remembered him as _that one nosy kid who couldn't keep his mouth shut_. But he wouldn't mock himself for that. There had been lives on the line, people that he could help if only he had the right kind of knowledge. Of course he'd been curious.)

James's wound closed up and Natasha let go. Immediately, he pulled his shirt up, slowly taking off the gauze that covered his side. Clint looked. Couldn't help himself.

He'd noticed that James was attractive on the first day that they met. (Clint wasn't unaware enough of himself not to admit that he had a competence kink, and James had been _very_ competent when fighting those vampires.) Attractive in a detached, lethal sort of way. (And maybe Clint also had a kink for dangerous people, he thought as Natasha pronounced James good as new.) But then the man had become a little softer around his edges, a little more tangible. And Clint had found himself fascinated despite himself. It wasn't just that Clint was caught by his looks anymore (despite what his unability to ignore just the slighest hint of skin might have implied.) It wasn't just his body, but the way he inhabited it, as cliché as that sounded. The way James could glower or look easily threatening, and still chose to hold himself carefully, ever conscious of the space he took. The way he always checked his surroundings, always too alert, too aware, but had slowly let Clint grow into the background of his life until his presence no longer registered as a threat. It was the fluid way with which he fought, the clunkier manner he had when they were sitting down, waiting for food to cook and with nothing to do.

Clint attached himself quickly to people. Whether it was platonically, romantically, or anywhere in-between or beyond, he fell in love hard and fast. And this was that, in a way. Not love the way people usually said it, with a capital letter and two syllables, but a kind of fall all the same. Somewhere between lust, affection, curiosity and the quiet warmth that Clint felt just at the idea of having someone else close.

It was nice to indulge in looking during this quiet moment, this small break they had managed to catch after too many too intense emotions. Life was always too intense, either too much or too little. Clint had learned to steal moments like these before he'd learn to pickpocket, and he had learned _that_ very young. It didn't matter what you did with these stolen pieces of time. Most often, Clint didn't even _consider_ doing anything with them. It just mattered that they existed.  
  
Natasha had a plan. It turned out that right now, Steve Rogers was spending time in Salem, of all places. It didn't bode well to Clint's (justifiably) superstitious ass, but it had the advantage of not being on the other side of the country.

They were going to drive up to the city, leaving Natasha a few towns over, and see whether James could pick up a presence. If not, they would get back to Natasha, and try to close in alongside her. But if James _could_ detect the grace presumably still inside Rogers' body, then they would approach on their own. Try and keep their distance for a while, if they could, although they all doubted that would be possible. If Rogers and whoever else he was working with could sense Natasha, they would surely sense James too. So, if discretion couldn't be achieved, they'd go all in. Armed to the teeth, but without showing their weapons. Aim for diplomacy, expect it to fail.

James' central role in all of this was unspoken, but weighing on everyone all the same. He was the one who had to find Rogers, and they were counting on their shared past to give them at least an _opportunity_ to approach him and get to talk to him.

And, sure, James hadn't actually protested about any part of this plan, but what did a lack of protest actually mean when Natasha was talking about _potentially world-endangering events_? All of this to say that Clint had a bad feeling about what was coming. Especially considering the fact that Natasha had bought them a _second_ cup of coffee before they'd left Seattle. He hadn't dared point it out in case it jinxed it further, but it _had_ felt a little like she was offering them a last meal.

Still. They drove into Oregon. They dropped Natasha off 30 miles away from Salem, then drove into the city. Salem was organized into two autonomous zones, and Clint and James drove along the edge of the first one, hoping that the latter would pick up some resonance from the leftover grace inside him.

He and Natasha had practiced, during their night all together in Seattle and then on the drive here. Clint had no idea how it actually worked, but there had been a lot of staring intensely at one another. They'd also asked Clint not to put any music on in the car, which had just been unfair since they wouldn't even _talk to him_ to keep him entertained.

James had his focused face on as they drove to Salem, once again in complete silence. It was always a bit jarring to be reminded of the ways in which so many people close to him weren't quite normal, or not quite human. There was Natasha, obviously, the most striking example. James with Lucifer's grace. (And the demon blood, although Clint tried not to think about that.) There was America and her psychic powers. Clint knew of hunters who drew strict lines between what was human and what was not. People who saw psychic as dangerous freaks, people who couldn't imagine that a witch could do anything of good, who who put down their closest friend without hesitation if they revealed themselves not to be 100% human. Those hunters would probably look at Clint and call him weak.

Clint didn't think his empathy was a weakness. He didn't see his tendency to see people as people instead of as humans and monsters made him a lesser hunter. After all, he was here, trying to save the world, thanks to two people who most other hunters wanted dead.

He was here and _he_ was fully human, with no idea what he was getting himself into. Some days, Clint felt tired. He wished he could stop caring so much. He wished he could stop wanting to help this world that kept spitting in his face.

“I can't feel anything,” James said, interrupting Clint's silent ruminations. “This isn't going to work.”

The slight tremble in the man's voice was what snapped Clint entirely out of his daze. He didn't like it when James was scared.

“You don't know that. Maybe you're just too far away.”

James shook his head, his right arm crossed over his chest and his hand clenching his prosthesis. “Natasha could sense him from half a state away. But I don't know how this works. I didn't even know this was a thing I could do, a month ago. What if there's not enough grace left after she healed me?”

“She would have thought of that. She planned this, you know that. She wouldn't have offered to heal you if she thought it might be a problem.”

“How would she even tell? She's powerful, sure, I get that. I can feel that. But how would she even tell whether it was enough or not, whether _I_ could do it or not?”

“What is this about?”

“What?”

“You're panicking. I don't believe this is _just_ because you're scared of Natasha's plan not working. There's something else.”

James breathed deeply, looking away. Clint kept driving. All these adventures he was having were really making him guzzle gas like crazy. He was about to save the world and all he would probably get for his trouble was in debt.

“It feels too much like... before,” Bucky said, slowly and carefully, like he had to keep watch over each syllable in case they tried to hurt him.

“Before?” Somehow, this once, Clint didn't feel like he was referring to the time before the Apocalypse.

“I used to... I used to be able to do things like this. Sense things that I wasn't supposed to. Control this... power inside of me.”

Clint raised an eyebrow, keeping his eyes on the road. It was a calculated expression, because this was the story he'd been waiting for. He was about to finally understand what had happened to James _before_ Lucifer, what had made him say yes to the angel in the first place, what had made him think he deserved it. He was about to know what the hell he'd meant when he'd told America that _demon blood_ was what had happened to his soul. Clint couldn't show how eager he was to finally understand, not when this was still so obviously painful for James.

“You used to psychic?”

“No. Well... yes, kind of. I guess they were psychic powers, of a sort. They just weren't... natural.”

There were different kinds of magics in this world. Or at least different sorts of power or energies that humans had grouped under the single appellation of _magic_. There was the sort that rituals drew from, a power that came from the Earth itself and its interaction with human souls, one that could be learned and practiced by anyone. There was that which came from light and darkness, from heaven and hell. The magic that was contained in grace or in the twisted form that souls took in the pits of hell. That magic could be leant, for a while, and dark witches drew from it in their dealings. And there was a third kind of magic, one that was from neither heaven nor hell but held too much power to be simply of this earth. True magic, some witches called it.

But those categories were fuzzy, and they blended together in several ways. Was the powers wielded by monsters caused by a distortion of human souls and the response of the earth thereto? Or was it closer to the dark power that demons possessed?

Clint had talked about it all with America, once, and she had admitted that she didn't know herself where she drew her powers from. Maybe it was a form of magic of the soul, or maybe it was the last type of magic, the one that natural witches used. Or maybe something other yet again.

But America had never been too bothered about where her powers came from, because they had always been _hers_ , something so thoroughly channeled through her own body that she could not doubt it was part of her true nature.  
That didn't sound like James.

“What do you mean by not natural?”

“I mean it's not something that I was born with. I wasn't _supposed_ to have those powers. Or I guess... I guess I was, in a way, but they didn't truly come from within me. I don't think so.”

Clint let his raised eyebrow speak for itself. James was being deliberately vague, but he didn't want to push the other man too hard if he decided he wasn't ready to talk about all of this in the end.

“When I was a baby. Something happened to me. Something was _done_ to me.” One more pause, just in case Clint hadn't been gripping the steering wheel tight enough already. He knew what was coming, and James knew he knew, but that didn't seem to make the conversation any easier. “I was given demon blood. And it... It changed me. Gave me these... powers. They weren't much, at first. Barely even manifested throughout my childhood. But then I started getting these dreams and... and the dreams would come true. And then there was more. When I got too angry, I could sometimes move things with my mind. It wasn't something I controlled. I didn't know where it came from, I thought I really was just a natural psychic, that my powers had taken time to develop and that was it. And I've always been able to... recognize demons, I guess. Not see their true face, but sense something about their essence. I guess that should have clued me in about what these powers really were.”

James closed his eyes for a second. Clint almost wanted to tell him to stop talking, to let all of that past be buried. But he knew from experience that sometimes those things needed _out_. Even if it was painful. _Especially_ if it was painful. The memories needed to be laid out into the open so that they could heal. They needed to be given to someone for safekeeping, someone who could be trusted to let one trust oneself again.

“Long story short, I got captured by a demon and told to kill a bunch of other psychic kids or else I'd die. And then I died. Steve brough me back to life, and then _he_ died, and then a demon told me that I could use the powers I'd been given for something good. Told me I could get revenge on the demon that had made that deal with Steve, prevent anyone else from getting hurt the same way. And the only thing I had to do for that was to drink his blood. Let my powers develop fully.”

Clint was starting to get why James was telling all of this _now_. Something had been put into his body without his consent, giving him powers he hadn't understood, and that he'd had to train and develop. They were basically repeating the exact same story, except with Lucifer's grace instead of demon blood.

“I became addicted. To the blood. And by the time I realized that Rumlow had been manipulating me all this time, Lucifer was free of his cage. The blood... It was all meant to prepare my body to become the devil's vessel. Make me stronger so I would make _him_ stronger. One of the only good things that came out of being possessed was that it rid me of my addiction. I had tried to stop before that. Between freeing Lucifer and saying yes to him. Tried going cold turkey and it almost killed me.” He paused again. “I guess that's why this doesn't feel right. I don't actually know if I want it to work. I know I should hope so. I'm trying. But it just reminds me so much of how all of my life has been shaped by the devil, from when I was a baby to now, with him still inside of me.”

“We'll get rid of it.” Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw James turn towards him, looking surprised by his vehemence. “The grace. As soon as we're done here, as soon as we've found Rogers, we'll get rid of it. We'll ask Natasha to use her powers, to burn it off. You don't have to carry this forver. Not anymore.”

James smiled bitterly, eyes half-closed and looking out at the horizon. “I wish it were that easy. But I already thought it was over. That the demon blood was gone. That Lucifer was gone. That I was finally done.” Clint noticed him rubbing at the wrist of his prosthetic arm. “Or I guess I hoped hard enough to convince myself. But now... I don't know. That dream was wrenched from me once, I'm not sure I can put in the effort to believe in it again.”

“Fucking stop it with that bullshit,” Clint growled.

James's widened at the outburt.

“That's just... You're just torturing yourself by thinking like that. And it's bullshit. Horrible things were done to you. I can't even begin to imagine what it all felt like. And I get that you've been manipulated for most of your life, and that it must all feel... out of your control, I guess. And you can believe that it was fate or written in your destiny or whatever, but how does that help with anything? Because if it was your destiny to be Lucifer's vessel and fight in the Apocalypse, congratulations, it's been fulfilled. But you still have a life to live. And personally, I'd rather believe that you got fucked over by some truly evil entities than to buy into that whole fate business. I'm tired of letting higher beings rule my life, you know? I was told all of my childhood to believe in God's kindness and that angels were watching over me. Well, God never did anything for me and angels turned out to be major dicks who didn't care at all about killing half of us. So fuck them and fuck fate. We survived the end of the world, and the life we've got is pretty shitty, but it's a life and it's _ours_. That's the only thing that matters. So we'll scrub that grace out of you and you'll get to be you again. Only you.”

Clint felt embarrassed as soon as his tirade was over. He'd really gone off on that one. And he meant every word of it, sure, but he'd probably come off as a little... intense.

Well. It had been an intense few weeks.

When he dared look towards James again, the man was staring at him. Clint felt himself blush.

“You...” James started. But then the whole expression on his face shifted. It was so sudden that Clint almost slammed the brakes of the van out of reflex. He controlled himself though, slowing down but not making them crash. There weren't any people around, as they were now driving between the two autonomous zones, but there were still plenty of ruins that Clint could have hit and that would have probably hit his van harder in return. “No, don't slow down, it's-” James' face twisted again. “I think I can feel something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I'm obssessed with all the narrative arcs that revolved around Sam's powers in SPN? And just powers in general. MORE MAGIC PLEASE!!!
> 
> Anyway! We are reaching the end, my friends! Next chapter is the last one (and it's BIG), and after that there will be a short epilogue and then this fic will be DONE! I'm expecting to finish editing everything in the next few days, and if that's the case I might post chapter 14 earlier than expected so that the whole thing is posted by next Tuesday. I hope you're a little bit excited <3


	14. Chapter 14

The sensation was strange. At once fainter and stronger than the feeling of Natasha's grace had been. Bucky couldn't really explain it. He had to really focus to pick up on it at all, but once he did, the sensation was a lot _sharper_ than anything he'd felt with Natasha, even when they'd been sitting next to each other in Clint's van and he'd been actively trying to sense her grace. Maybe it was because the two things that were echoing each other were more alike. Natasha's grace was angelic in nature, but she was still a nephilim, so it was probably influenced by her human soul. What was supposedly in Steve's body was pure angelic grace. _Arch_ angelic, to be even more specific. Powerful and undiluted and the exact same thing that was running through Bucky's system. So maybe it made sense that it would feel so much clearer. So familiar.

Bucky didn't want to think about just _how_ familiar. How he'd been in contact with Michael's grace before, but also with the soul it had lived alongside of for the last few years.

Steve.

Fuck.

He could really feel Steve's presence. He could find him. He _would_ find him, because that was the plan, that was what he was here to do. And then he'd... Then he'd see. Part of him thought that the entire world would crumble just from the both of them seeing each other again. Did he deserve to hope for anything else?

“Keep driving. It's still faint. But I'm pretty sure he's somewhere in the second zone.”

“Okay then,” Clint replied next to him, accelerating towards the city once more.

Focus on the plan. Focus on what had to be done, not what he wanted to happen. One step at a time, moving forward.

Clint had said that Bucky was in control of his own life. It didn't feel like it. Not when just _thinking_ about what he wanted to do made him freeze up. But at the same time, he knew that his actions were deliberate. That they had meaning.

Focus on the plan.

They reached the checkpoint that marked the entrance to the inhabited perimeter. Both Clint and him subjected themselves to the usual tests. Silver, salt, holy water. As was his habit, Bucky hid his arm, tried to act as unremarkable as possible. They went through. They had to park the van to get further into the autonomous zone, but they both picked weapons to take with them and continued on foot. After hesitating a moment, Clint took his bow. It wasn't exactly discreet, but no one would find people carrying weapons around suspicious. It had become a standard thing.

They started walking, and Bucky tried to act like he was confident in where he was leading them, even though he barely understood how this new sense of his worked. But picking a direction and seeing what happened seemed like a decent first step to figuring it out. He couldn't feel any change at first. Just a vague feeling of something being _there_ , being _close_ , without any more precise indication.

Then it changed. He couldn't tell if it was because they'd gotten closer, or because the grace inside him was honing in on its sister, creating a connection. But suddenly it wasn't just an external presence in his mind, it was a pull, one that had force and direction.

“That way,” Bucky said, heading into a sidestreet. Clint followed him without asking questions.

The pull became more and more insistent as they got closer. It was impossible not to notice anymore. Bucky couldn't believe that Steve wouldn't be able to feel him in return, if it was really Steve that he was connected to. Even before meeting Natasha, Bucky would have noticed this sensation. Which meant that Steve would be ready for them when they arrived.

Focus on the plan.

One step at a time.

He stopped in front of a sleek-looking office building. It was a jarring sight in a landscape dominated by repurposed constructions interspersed with vegetable beds. The building looked exactly as it would have in the old world, and Bucky wondered for a second if he would step back in time by entering its doors.

(The thought had a thrilling quality, even if it was ridiculous. It was nice to think he might have the opportunity to erase all of his mistakes.)

“Is this it? I kind of expected a run-down barn or something. Who chooses to open a portal to another world in a smarmy office building?”

“We don't know what they're trying to do yet. And we don't know that this place is where they want to do it.”

“Okay, but Natasha seemed pretty sure. They used to move around a lot, and now they settled here. Why would they do that if not to start their nefarious plan, you know?”

Bucky shook his head. Clint was talking as if to make light of the situation, but Bucky knew that he was genuinely trying to work out this situation. He knew that he could trust Clint to have his back whatever happened.

Because Clint was willing to fight. Not just for himself, but for the sake of other people. He was even willing to fight _Bucky_ on his negative thoughts and self-destructive tendencies.

Bucky had felt something, in the car with Clint, driving through the no-man's land in-between LA's two inhabited zones. Before he'd picked up on Michael's grace. Clint had just been so adamant, so energetic, trying to convince Bucky to believe in his own power. It had made him realize that Clint saw him as something worth fighting for. And that had opened his eyes, in a way, because he too felt like he might be able to fight for Clint. He was doing it now, in a way. Walking up to the door of the building instead of running away to hide like a part of him still wanted to.

He didn't dwell on what would happen to the two of them, in the immediate future or what lay beyond it. Focus on the plan.

He opened the door.

“Are we really just... going in through the front door? Shouldn't we try to scope the place out or something?”

“No point. Whoever the grace is resonating with, they can feel us too. And they haven't moved, so they're not planning on going anywhere.”

“Right. If you say so.”

They walked into a reception hall. It was completely empty. The lack of people or decoration gave the room an eerie quality. Without consciously thinking about it, Bucky put his hand on one of his guns.

He pulled at the thread of grace inside him. Waited for it to pull back.

He looked down at his feet.

Downards then.

“We gotta get to the basement.”

“Oh. Awesome. The nefarious plans are happening in a secret basement. Not cliché at all. You know, I expected more of this Rogers guy. Everyone seemed to have only good things to say about him after the War, so I expected that if he turned bad he would _at least_ do it with a bit of style.”

“Style wasn't ever Steve's thing.”

Bucky moved towards the stairs. He didn't add how nothing about this really felt like Steve's style at all. He couldn't see why he would want to open a door to Purgatory and risk whatever was in there getting out. And, beyond that, Steve had never been one to mess with things like magic. He was a straightforward kind of man, didn't like playing with things that he couldn't control.

They walked down the stairs and reached a locked door. _That_ definitely made more sense than the empty reception. Bucky was about to use his prosthetic arm to force the door open, but Clint gently pushed him out of the way.

“Let me,” he said, kneeling on the floor and taking a lockpick set out of one of his pockets.

Bucky stepped out of the way, hand on his gun once more. Things had been too quiet so far and he felt like something had to give. The fact that Clint was in such a vulnerable position right then didn't exactly make him comfortable.

The hunter made quick work of the lock, though, and it was definitely more discreet than just breaking it right off. Though Bucky still wasn't convinced that they needed to be discreet at all. The pulse of grace in his mind was so insistant it was starting to feel like a headache.

Clint stood up again, and Bucky moved to take the lead once more. The hunter could take care of himself, but they both knew that Bucky was still a better fighter than him. Better to take no risks.

The room they walked into was brightly lit, but their view of it was blocked by the numerous sets of shelves and workbenches that occupied the space. It looked like... a laboratory of some sort? Except that, among the scientific equipment, Bucky could recognize items that belonged more in a witch's apothecary than anywhere else.

They heard objects clinging together coming from further into the basement. It seemed that the room extended the whole surface of the building. Bucky gestured with his head, indicating for Clint to follow him. Neither of them drew their weapon, although they were definitely prepared to do so. If they came in arms raised, the chance that they would be shot on sight would only expand exponentially.

Bucky moved slowly, carefully, temples throbbing with the strength of another archangel's grace so close.

They cleared a final set of storage shelves, coming into a cleared out space at the very end of the room. There was a huge symbol drawn on the very back wall in a red color that could only be blood. But that wasn't what captured Bucky's attention. In the middle of the space, looking right at him, was a tall blond man, shoulders held tight in a military pose.

“Bucky...” Steve Rogers said, looking at him with big and dewy blue eyes, and easy smile on his lips that made Bucky's body want to shiver.  
“Who the hell is Bucky?” Clint grumbled next to him. Right. He'd only ever introduced himself as James.

“Me,” Bucky replied, keeping his gaze fixed on Steve instead of looking back at his companion.

“Oh. I get why you stick with James. Bucky's a stupid name.”

Bucky wanted to roll his eyes, but he couldn't. The situation was much too tense for that. He couldn't begrudge Clint for his commentary, though. He knew it was a nervous habit of his.

“You're alive,” Steve said, also ignoring Clint.

Bucky winced. He still didn't why or how he had survived, but he knew that the last time he and Steve had seen each other, it was Steve's hand that had carried the blade which had pierced through his gut.

“There were rumors that you were still alive, but I didn't know if I should believe them. And then I felt you coming here and... Why didn't you tell me?”

Bucky gritted his teeth. He hated this. Half of him wanted to run to Steve and hug him. The other half wanted to run from this place and never look back. And then there was his duty. Not what he wanted to do but what he knew he had to.

“What are you doing, Steve?” Bucky asked.

The other man frowned, obviously disappointed that Bucky was asking questions of his own instead of answering his. Perhaps disappointed that his actions were being questioned as well. Bucky couldn't trust that this Steve was truly the man he had known and loved. _He_ didn't feel much like the person he'd been when he was with Steve. He'd lost and gone through too much to still be that man.

“I'm saving them. All the people who died in the War.”

“Could we get on with it, by the way? We've got a pretty small window of time to work with, as you know.”

Bucky drew his weapon out of reflex, pointing it squarely at the person who had just spoken. He'd barely noticed them, before, too focused on Steve and the contradictory feelings that were coursing through him.

“Wow, wow! Easy tiger. You could hurt someone with that thing!” The man who spoke seemed to be in his late fourties, with dark hair and a goatie. Despite his protest at being held at gunpoint, he held himself casually, confidently.

“And who the hell are _you_?” Clint asked, his bow now in hand, although his arrow was still pointed towards the ground.

Bucky didn't follow his example and kept his gun raised. There was something about this other man that didn't inspire him any confidence, and they were all better safe than sorry.

“Tony Stark. Genius, ex-billionaire, philantropist. Oh, and a witch.” He raised a hand, said a few words in Latin, then flicked his wrist to the side. His eyes glowed purple with magic. _Powerful_ magic, and Bucky's gun was ripped out of his hands, clattering against one of the shelves, a good five meters away.

Bucky's skin prickled, and he had to force himself to resist the urge to just draw a second weapon and fire directly at the witch. He wasn't sure that would be very productive.

“Tony, stop it,” Steve snapped.

The witch raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, but he did lower his hand. “Don't look at me like that. He started it.”

Steve sighed. It was an irritated noise that Bucky knew well. One that was equal parts frustration and affection. He'd had it directed at him many times before when he'd refused to agree with Steve or whatever stupid plan he'd come up with. Before. In another world.

There was a pull of nostalgia in Bucky's chest and he wondered at how much it hurt. It had been years since Steve died. How come the wound had never healed properly?

“Seriously though... what the hell is going on?” Clint asked.

“Watch your language, Legolas, this one doesn't like swearing,” the witch said while pointing at Steve.

That earned him an eyeroll from the latter.

“We're going to bring them back. Everyone who died during the War. Those who didn't turn into ghosts. We can bring them back.”

“Are you fucking delusional?” Clint snapped.

Steve looked a little hurt by the question, but it was Tony who got properly angry. He moved forward, away from the wall and the symbol drawn onto it. Bucky noticed a jar discarded close to it, as well as traces of red coating the witch's right hand.

“I know Steve's got this policy of being polite and not killing people or whatever, and that he's got history with mister brooding over there, but please know that I have not such compulsion to be nice to you. We have work to do and if you don't like that you can kindly fuck off. Or I can make you.” He smiled at the end of the last sentence, wiggling his bloodied fingers. It was a slightly manic kind of expression, but that didn't take away from its threatening power. This was a man who could do many things and wasn't scared to. This was a man who was desperate.

“Tony. Wait. Give me the time to explain it to them. Bucky can help.”

The witch rolled his eyes. “I thought we agreed to do it just the two of us. _Now_.”

“Five minutes. Give me five minutes.”

“Fine.” He crossed his arms. When Steve only kept staring at him, he raised an eyebrow and made an impatient _go on_ gesture with his hand.

In the meantime, Clint looked towards Bucky, a look of exaggerated confusion on his face. _What the fuck?_ , he mouthed silently. Bucky gave him the tiniest of shrugs. He wasn't sure where all of this was going either, but right then nobody was making any direct attempt on their lives. It was something.

And he _knew Steve_. Or at least he used to. And the man he knew would only do something like this if he truly believed he was doing the right thing.

“During the War, the traffic of souls was interrupted. Couldn't let them go to either Heaven or Hell in case the other side tried to weaponise them. But they didn't stay on Earth. At least not all of them. There would be a lot more ghosts around if that was the case.”

Bucky nodded, just the tiniest movement to acknowledge that he was listening, that he was following what Steve was saying. In return, Steve's face lighted up like that of a kid on Christmas. It made something twist in Bucky's stomach.

“But they had to go _somewhere_. And there's only one other place left where they could have gone.”  
“Purgatory,” Clint said.  
Steve nodded towards him, much more coldly than any of the expressions he had targeted at Bucky. “Purgatory. Tony found a way to open a door to it. Bring them all back.”

“What's the catch?” Bucky asked.

Tony scoffed from where he was still standing with his arms crossed. Steve only looked confused.

“This all sounds good _in theory_ , but I know there's a catch. Purgatory is where the souls of monsters go. How do you know that human souls could even get in there? And if you open a door, how do you stop other things from stepping out?”

“You already tried it,” Clint said, voiced tinged with bitter realization. “You already tried, and messed up. That's why there have been those weird monster attacks. Like those werewolves in Nevada. You already opened a door once, and something got out. Something not human. That's what Natasha felt.”

Steve looked pain, and that was how Bucky knew that Clint was right.

“We didn't know how to control it then. We knew it was dangerous, but there was no other way but to try. We can do it better know. We can do it properly.”

“Why?” Bucky asked.

“I told you. We can save them.”

“How? Even if you manage to draw those souls out, what are you going to do with them? They'll just be stuck here as ghosts.”

“No. We've found a way. I can hold them a while, and Tony has a spell that can give them their bodies back.”

“You can _hold them_?” Bucky couldn't believe this. It sounded awful and _dangerous_. Actually, scratch that. He could definitely believe that Steve Rogers would be the one trying something as crazy as this. “You can hold thousands of souls within your body until that witch brings them all back? How long will that take?” Sure, Tony was powerful. Even Bucky had been able to feel that from the one tiny spell he'd cast earlier. But what they were talking about doing sounded impossible. Even if it wasn't, there was no way it would be easy. “You're gonna kill yourself.”

Steve... looked away.  
He didn't reply and he looked away and Bucky felt the way of dread and understanding settle in his gut. Because, once again, this wasn't that surprising. Not if this new version of Steve shared anything with his old self.

Steve had never really cared if he had to make sacrifices, as long as the sacrifice was himself. He had jumped into the hunter's lifestyle as soon as someone had offered him the chance. And then he'd traded his own life for Bucky's, and in one too-short year Bucky had never been able to get him to say that he regretted it.

So he didn't doubt that Steve was aware that he had very little chance of surviving this whole process. He didn't doubt that Steve just _didn't care_. It might even been worse than that. Who was to say that this wasn't exactly the outcome that the man was hoping for?

“My body held an archangel,” Steve said, eyes still trained to a wall. “In terms of raw power, that has to be about equivalent to a few million souls.”

Bucky wanted to scream. He wanted to punch the man in front of him, the one that reminded him so much of his childhood friend except more bitter, more jaded. More desperate, just like the witch was. This was the plan of two people who thought they had nothing to lose. And could Bucky really begruge that? Wouldn't he have acted just the same if he'd been given the chance? Would he not be ready to throw away his own life if someone promised him the tiniest chance to make his mistakes right?

“This is insane,” Clint said, looking from Steve to Bucky and back. “Souls and grace aren't the same thing. And you already let something else escape from Purgatory. How can you be sure that something worse won't come out the second time?”

“We're prepared for it now. Tony-”

“No offense, but I'm not sure even the most powerful witch in the world would be able to handle what's on the other side of that door.”

“Really, Merida? And how would you even know that?”

“Because I've got a brain. Purgatory is where monsters go where they die, right? All monsters. Do you know how many species are extinct on Earth but documented in the lore? Because it's a lot. Nasty things. Things that no one on Earth is ready to handle. What's the point of bringing back people who're already dead if thousands more end up as monster chow in the process?”

“We have to try,” Steve replied. “Those people are dead because of me and-”

“Oh, so this is what it's all about?” Clint snapped once more. His grip was tight around his bow, and Bucky noticed with some anxiety that Tony seemed about as twitchy as him. This had the potential to degenerate _fast_. “Let's cut to the chase here and stop pretending for a second. You don't care about saving lives. If you truly did, you wouldn't take the risk of destroying what little we've been able to build back since the end of the war. If you cared about people, you would be helping those who are alive today. You'd be out there, growing food, building shelter. Making things better. But this is just about _you_. It's about _your_ guilt, _your_ actions. You don't care about _them_. _You_ just want to feel better.”

“Enough!”

The witch's eyes glowed a bright purple, and Bucky didn't have time to move before Clint was being slammed against a wall, supsended in the air by Tony's power.

“Who do you think you even are, coming in here and showing off your moral standards? What have _you_ done to try and fix this?”

“My best,” Clint growled through gritted teeth. The spell holding him up was obviously making it hard for him to breathe. “I kept on hunting the very monsters that you're about to let out of that door. I actually got out there and helped people. Tried to help those people _before_ they died. I was out there fighting and I still am.”

He glared at Tony, making his implications obvious. It seemed that Clint had made a judgment. To him, the witch was just another threat to humanity, just some other monster that needed to be stopped. And the thing was... Bucky wasn't too far from that conclusion. He trusted Clint's moral compass, trusted that he really had only the good of humanity in mind. He wasn't the kind to kill monsters just for what they were. But he wouldn't let someone put the world in unnecessary danger.

“Steve,” Bucky interrupted, dragging the blond's attention away from Clint and Tony. “Don't do this. There's no guarantee that it will work, and if it doesn't you'll just kill yourself for no good reason and threaten to bring back monsters on this earth that could do as much damage as angels and demons did.”

“Oh, don't start,” the witch said, raising his other arm and sending Bucky flying into a set of shelves. Pain errupted all across his body as he violently hit the floor. He ground his teeth and sat up again.

“What happened wasn't your fault,” Bucky said, still addressing Steve. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Clint struggle against the spell holding him. It was probably of no use, considering the strength of Tony's power, but it at least kept the witch distracted from Bucky and Steve. “It was Heaven's. You didn't choose it and you're not responsible, just as I'm not responsible for what Lucifer did with my body.” It was still hard to believe in that, but he had to. He had to if he wanted Steve to listen to him. He had to, because it was what Clint wanted for him and Bucky found he wanted to make him proud. Not because he needed to prove his worth, but simply because he wanted to make the other man happy. Because he trusted his moral compass, and if Clint saw something worth protecting in him, Bucky would try to see it too. “We were pawn in all this, Steve. Manipulated against our will. And it doesn't mean we didn't make mistakes, but we can't erase those. We just have to keep moving. Find a way forward. This isn't it. Trying to fix the past like that, it's a pipedream. You're looking back at a world that doesn't exist anymore.”

His body was wrenched back to the ground, the breath knocked out of him. _Good_. If Tony didn't want him to talk, that meant he thought Steve might actually be convinced to abandon their plan. It meant that there was hope.

It was hard to breathe, his body was bruised and hurt, but Bucky was used to pain. So he sat up again, and he didn't spare a glance for the witch that was trying to hold him back. He only looked at Steve, at the blue eyes that he knew so well, that he had yearned for and feared for two years now, that he hadn't felt he deserved ever meeting again.

“But I _am_ responsible,” Steve said, his voice breaking. He was already hesitating, shooting Tony weary glances. Checking that he wasn't about to kill them, probably.

Bucky wasn't sure Tony wanted to. If he had, he could have done so much earlier. Steve would have been mad about it, but he could have come up with an excuse, how one of them had been about to draw their weapon, about how they had threatened their plan, anything. He could have just threatened Steve in turn. But he could guess that that wasn't who the man really was. Desperate, yes. Too powerful for his own good, definitely. But not evil. The fear in his eyes even as his powers held most in the room hostage implied that he truly believed in what he was doing, truly dreaded that it would go wrong. But he wasn't ready to just kill people either.

“It's my fault the Apocalypse started,” Steve continued. “I wasn't strong enough...”

“To resist angels? You thought you were doing the right thing. I didn't even have that excuse.”

“No, that wasn't... I mean, that too, but I...” He took a deep breath, not looking at Bucky. “Michael told me. Before he possessed me. I was the one that broke the first of the seals that held Lucifer. In hell. I... I _did things_ , Bucky. Unforgivable things. And it started... everything. I thought I was making up for it when I let Michael in. But I just made it worse. I finally have a chance to make it better. I can't _not_ do this, it wouldn't be right. I can't not _try_.”

“You went to hell to save me.” The words escaped Bucky's mouth like they never had before, like wild animals captured for too long and jumping towards the barest hint of sky. Bucky had lived an entire year with the weight of Steve's sacrifice on his shoulder, after he'd come back from the dead but before the deal Steve had made with a demon expired and hell hounds came to drag him away. Twelve months during which Bucky had fought tooth and nail to find a solution. When none had been forthcoming, he'd looked for an explanation. Something to make sense of why this was happening. Of why Steve had acted that way. But that search hadn't gone much better, because Steve had always just looked at him and told him that he couldn't _not_ save him. Like Bucky's name was explanation enough for throwing all but one year of his life away and dooming his soul to eternal torment.

“You tried to change the past, to _fix it_ , to make it all better by sacrificing yourself. And what did that do? You... You might have started to free Lucifer, but I was the one to break the last seal. I was the one to let him in. You gave me back my life, but you also took _everything_ from me. You _left me_. You left me to figure out how to live a life I wasn't supposed to have, without you in it. You left me to do what you hadn't been able to.”

This isn't the time or place for this conversation. They're being watched by both Clint and the witch and the clock is ticking and Bucky is getting sidetracked, falling into the cess pool of resentment that had grown in his heart for months after Steve died, that had led him to Rumlow and his easy promises and the feeling of his blood running down his throat and how that seemed to make everything easier to deal with. Because maybe Bucky had been weak, but Steve had been weaker first. He'd _left._

“And you're just trying to do the same thing again. Sacrificing yourself so you don't have to carry your own guilt, but not sparing a thought for the people whose lives you're supposed to save.”

It was too angry. Too bitter. Bucky wasn't sure how much of his own words he actually believed in. Part of him blamed Steve, yes, but he'd always found it much easier to blame himself. But what this conversation needed wasn't any more self-flagellation on either of their parts.

“You're going to bring all of those souls back. Great. _Maybe_ that witch can find a way to give them bodies. _Maybe_ he can even stop all of the monsters in Purgatory from slipping out as well.”

“And that's a big maybe,” Clint interrupted from where he was still up against the wall, ignoring the growl that the witch sent his way. “That place was created for a reason. It's a prison. To keep the nastiest of God's creations from ripping the rest apart. There must be billions of monsters in there who are going to wanna get out.”

“And that's not counting what is _already_ out. Monsters are _already_ acting weird. Too aggressive. Unpredictable. This on top of the mess that the world is still in. Is that really what those lost souls would even want? Is it really freedom, is it really _life_ for them to die on one battlefield and be brought back to fight on the next?”

Bucky stared at Steve, at his bright blue eyes shining with contradictory emotions. Anger, surprise, resentment, hurt pride, distrust. Bucky stared at him and he begged him to understand what he knew couldn't be said.

_You should have let me die._

“I can't... I don't know- I can't...”

“Don't go back. Look forward. Let the dead be dead and _move on_. Assuaging your guilt this way serves no one but you.”

“Well, that's gonna be enough of that,” Tony said, twisting his wrist and sending Bucky flying again, pinning him on the wall next to Clint.

Pain errupted from Bucky's spine and spread through his body to the point where he had to fight to keep his eyes open. Through heavy eyelids, he could see Clint throwing him a concerned look.

“Steve. Open the damn door. We can't wait any longer.”

“But, Tony-”

“No buts, you fucking _coward_. You promised you were going to do this. You promised to get me my wife and my daughter back! I don't care if your precious best friend's here and you got what you wanted! You _promised_.”

Bucky and Clint both dropped to the ground as the witch turned his full attention onto Steve, eyes burning a bright purple.

“So you're going to do your job and do it properly.”

“Tony-” Steve protested, stumbling a step backwards in fear.

“You're going to bring back my family and everyone else. I don't care if this world is shit. They should have a chance to choose for themselves if they want to live in it.”

He raised his hand.

But before he could say or do anything else, there was a loud bang coming from right next to Bucky, and he watched the fingers curl up in pain.

“ _Fuck!”_ Tony shouted, waves of power flowing from his hands where he held them in front of his chest. Except that, instead of targeting Steve like Bucky had feared, or even the symbol painted on the wall, they radiated outwards. Severals shelves collapsed, objects flowing and glass jars breaking open all over the place. Bucky winced, a roiling and uncomfortable sensation taking hold of his body as the waves of power passed through him. They were lucky to be in a more open space and not at risk of getting hit by the projectiles.

Checking, Bucky saw Clint lowering the handgun that had been strapped to Bucky's right leg. He was breathing fast, same as Bucky, their bodies on high alert after being thrown around and in the presence of such powerful magic.

Tony dropped to his knees, still clutching the hand that Clint had shot. The ground shook beneath their feet as more of his power dispersed. This wasn't witchcraft. It wasn't spellwork. It was just pure, raw power coming out as an expressions of pain and grief.

Both Bucky and Clint looked at the man crumbling in front of them. With a mix of awe and uncertainty in his voice, Clint shily asked: “Could he actually have done it?”

It was hard not to contemplate the idea, what with all the energy that the witch was giving off. Would it really have been possible to save all of those people?

Still, Bucky shook his head. This was _one_ witch. One man. No matter how powerful, it was suicidal to think that a single person could hold back every monster that had been locked in Purgatory through the ages.

They would never have the final answer on that, probably. Hopefully. From the witch's breakdown and his earlier insistence that Steve and him had to act within a time frame, Bucky could guess that their chance had passed.

They'd done it.

The plan had worked.

They'd saved the world. Maybe. Or trapped a billion lives in a place that probably wasn't that much better than hell.

Bucky watched as Steve knelt down in front of the witch. He sighed.

He didn't think he would ever be free of the mental dilemmas that had plagues his life since Steve's death. He wouldn't ever be able to think of himself as a hero or a villain. There were too many layers of complication for him to ever reach a clear judgement.

He felt something bump against his hand and turned towards Clint, who was handing him his gun back.

Bucky took the weapon in his left hand. Before the other could withdraw, however, he slid the fingers of his right in his. Clint looked down at where their palms met, then back up at Bucky. He smiled.

Bucky knew he should find a way to explain himself, explain what this gesture meant, what _Clint_ meant, what he'd come to mean, in those past few weeks that had felt like months. But the smile thrown his way told him that he didn't need to. At least for now. For now, this was enough.

“What's going to happen?” Clint asked, gaze settling once again on where the witch was sitting. Steve had moved to take him in his arms, and Bucky thought Tony might be crying. He looked away, not wanting to intrude.

He wondered what the history was between the two of them. How they had met, how they had gotten close enough to come up with this plan together. It wasn't hard to imagine two men without family, lost in a directionless world, who found each other and fed one another's desperation without meaning to, until it came to this.

He wondered what it would feel like to be the one in Steve's arm again. To have his family back, finally, after 7 long years. He wondered if Steve would still smell of home to him, or if his embrace would be like that of a stranger.

He wondered if Steve could forgive him. If he knew all of the things that Bucky had done. How much he had failed to respect the gift that Steve had left him with when he died.

He wondered if Steve would ever forgive himself.

“I don't know,” Bucky said, turning back towards Clint.

He found he didn't care that much about Steve, about having found him again. He found he didn't care about growing back the relationships they used to have.

He wanted to follow his own advice, for once. Focus on the present. Let the past be the past. Invest in what he had today, not what he had lost.

He squeezed Clint's fingers.

Who knew what Tony would do. How they would get out of here. How they would deal with whatever had come out of Purgatory the first time a door had been opened and was causing trouble with monsters. Who knew what would happen tomorrow.

Clint didn't let go of his hand and Bucky didn't let go of his gaze.

What they had was good enough.

Not great, and it might get worse.

They'd wait and see.

It was all worth sticking around for anyway.


	15. Chapter 15

What happened next was this:

Steve calmed Tony down enough that he didn't kill Clint and Bucky for thwarting his plan. He didn't look either of them in the eye, didn't apologize, but he didn't kill them.

That was better than they'd expected.

Besides, they didn't need an apology. Bucky, especially, knew what it was like to play with forces beyond your control, to do it for the right reasons, or reasons that you thought were right, and to have that purpose twisted until it became something unrecognizable. Twisted by demons or by grief, it didn't matter much in the end.

Steve followed Clint and Bucky outside of the laboratory, and the two old friends shared an intense and very awkward silence as they looked at one another.

This was the second time they had seen each other since Bucky had watched Steve get torn to shreds by hellhounds. A few minutes earlier, they had once again been staring each other down on opposite sides of a conflict, like this was all just a distorted reflection of their first reunion.

Steve looked away first, face falling, and he started to take a step back. So Bucky let his instincts take over and folded him into his arms.

Steve didn't smell the same as he had. Before.

Bucky guessed that the end of the world would do that to a person.

The embrace didn't exactly feel like home, but it was good all the same. It was like finding a single flower blooming in a patch of dry earth. A promise that something could still grow.

The wound of losing Steve had never fully healed for Bucky. Too many of his actions had been linked to his death for it not to stay forever torn open.

And this might not be enough to change that. Finding Steve again, the both of them alive despite everything, didn't erase what had happened. Nothing would.

But even if it wasn't home, they found that they still had a place in each other's arms.

That was enough.

Clint and Bucky left. Steve stayed with Tony. The witch needed him, and he wanted to help. Bucky didn't begrudge him. He was proud, in a sense, of the fact that they could separate themselves from one another. That they had finally moved past the codepency that had made them die and kill for each other.

Bucky told Steve that he would find him again, someday, and felt the pulse of grace in his mind strengthen with Steve's agreement.

He shook his head.

Not like that.

He didn't want to have Lucifer's grace inside him anymore. It would erase his only tangible connection to Steve, but it was important to him. Clint had told him to take control of his own fate, and he was going to.

So he told Steve to come to the Los Angeles autonomous zone when he felt like it. To ask for a psychic named America Chavez. She would probably know where Clint and Bucky were.

(Clint had looked at him with wide eyes at that, filled with so much hope and surprise that Bucky had felt compelled to intertwine their fingers again. He didn't know what this meant yet. But America had predicted in her cards that they were going to stick with each other for a while, hadn't she?)

(Steve hadn't commented.)  
  
They had picked Natasha up again, watched as relief transformed her face into the brightest smile that Clint had ever seen on her. The two of them hugged and Clint wondered for a moment how much it had hurt her to send him and Bucky into the jaws of the unknown, unable to help. So powerful and yet powerless once more, just as she had been during the war. Never quite powerful _enough_.

And sending Clint in her place. Clint, so human and so fragile, so _weak._ But she'd trusted him, and they had survived. Their bodies gripping each other were proof of that.

Clint knew that Natasha wouldn't stay. She got antsy if she was fixed to a place or a person for too long. There were more things that required her attention. More people that she could help, more people that she could be.

But he also knew that she would be back, knew that they held each other deep in their hearts and that their souls would continue to sing to one another. It wasn't the same as angel grace echoing, but a connexion all the same.  
  
Bucky and Clint went back Los Angeles. It wasn't a home for either of them, not really, but still somewhere that held space for them, somewhere they could belong for a while.

They stayed for longer than two days this time. They took the time to play with Lucky, the two of them. Bucky'd never had a dog, but he found it easy to lose himself to the expectationless enthusiasm of that particular ball of fur.

The two hunters shared one of the beds available for visitors, not yet sure of where they were going to go afterward, not yet sure of what was between them, but certain enough in their desire to explore one another.

Bucky got a shovel talk from Kate.

On her next visit, Natasha scrubbed the grace out of Bucky. It was easy. Didn't hurt. Right until the moment where Bucky stopped being able to use his left arm.

Angel blades were made out of angel grace and he'd always known what his arm truly was. He had expected it to happen. He thought that Clint had suspected as well, but they'd never talked about it together. Bucky didn't exactly know what he'd feared. That Clint would try to talk him out of it? That he wouldn't?

But he didn't and they had to cut through Bucky's arm to get the piece of now dead metal out, and yes, Natasha healed him after that too, but it still hurt.

A lot.

It was worth it, to know that he was free.

They fought monsters. A lot of them. Monsters they'd never seen before.  
  
They saw Steve and Tony again. The both of them were tired and weary, and said that they had fixed their mistake. Killed the Mother of monsters, the thing that had escaped through their first door.

Tony seemed like a different man, somehow both more guarded and less on edge.

Bucky looked at him and saw someone who had taken a single step away from the brink of despair. He also saw someone who had possibly realized that he was no longer alone.

It might be enough to save him.  
It had been for Bucky.

One day, Clint realized they had been in LA for two weeks. That Lucky had started sleeping at the foot of his and Bucky's shared bed instead of in Kate and America's room. That he had started talking to more people in the camp besides his close friends.

He was suddenly filled with the urge to run.

In bed next to him, Bucky shuffled, then draped his arm across Clint's chest.

“We can go after breakfast,” Bucky mumbled, still half-asleep but intuiting what had made Clint tense up. Perhaps because this was far from the first time that it had happened.

They left after breakfast.

Because Clint still didn't feel like he was made for the kind of commitment that community living required. He still wasn't ready to feel bound and settled.

But even if he ran, Bucky would come with him.

The both of them free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.
> 
> Thank you so much for coming on this ride with me, I really hope you enjoyed it! Writing this fic was very intense, because for such a long project I wrote it in a relatively short amount of times. It allowed me to practice things I love (writing action scenes and doing world-building among others) but almost never do, which was great fun!
> 
> I love Winterhawk and its fandom, and Supernatural is a show that has had a lot of influence over my life, so I hope that my passion for both showed through in this fic!
> 
> Also, big shoutout to the organizers and participants in the Winterhawk Bingo, because this fic wouldn't exist without them all.
> 
> Please let me know if you enjoyed this fic, I love reading any and all comments <3


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